EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 
HIS  LIFE  AND  WORK 


EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

HIS  LIFE  AND  WORK 

BY 

WILLIAM  BELMONT  PARKER 

WITH   ILLUSTRATIONS 


BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

<$be  fttoer^ibe  j&repa  Cambridge 

1915 


COPYRIGHT,  1915,  BY  WILLIAM  BELMONT  PARKER 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  February  1915 


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TO  MY  FATHER 


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330388 


PREFACE 

IT  is  more  than  ten  years  since,  in  a  burst  of 
enthusiasm  and  admiration,  I  undertook  to 
prepare  a  "Life"  of  Sill.  Enthusiasm  and 
admiration  have  continued  unabated,  but  cir 
cumstances  interposed  to  delay  the  work;  not, 
I  am  now  inclined  to  think,  to  its  detriment. 
Had  I  gone  forward  unimpeded,  working  out 
the  plan  I  then  had  in  mind,  the  result  would 
have  been  different,  partaking  of  the  nature  of 
essay  and  criticism.  But  midway  of  my  task  I 
fell  under  the  influence  of  that  great  master  of 
the  art  of  biography,  Sir  Leslie  Stephen,  whose 
dicta  upon  the  subject  changed  the  course  I 
was  taking.  "Nobody,"  said  he,  "ever  wrote 
a  dull  autobiography";  and  he  added,  "The 
biographer  can  never  quite  equal  the  autobi- 
ographer,  but  with  a  sufficient  supply  of  letters 
he  may  approach  very  closely  to  the  same 
result."  About  the  same  time  a  saying  of  Sill's, 
which  I  had  probably  read  half  a  dozen  times 
without  seeing  its  application  to  the  matter  in 
hand,  came  home  to  me  and  reinforced  the 
remarks  of  Sir  Leslie,  —  "Let  a  man  write 
about  himself.  It's  the  only  fellow  he  knows 
anything  about."  These  have  been  my  sailing 


viii  PREFACE 

orders.  Though  Sill's  letters  are  not  so  abund 
ant  as  a  biographer  working  on  this  principle 
might  wish,  they  are  not  wanting  except  for 
brief  periods,  and  so  far  as  available  they  have 
been  most  generously  placed  at  my  disposal  by 
Sill's  family  and  friends. 

My  obligations,  therefore,  are  many  and 
serious.  My  most  grateful  thanks  are  due  to 
Mrs.  Sill,  not  only  for  materials,  but  also  for 
wise  counsel  and  cooperation.  To  Sill's  class 
mates  at  Yale,  Mr.  Henry  Holt  and  Franklin 

B.  Dexter,  as  also  to  Miss  Millicent  W.  Shinn, 
of  California,  I  acknowledge  a  debt  of  grati 
tude.    Among  many  others  to  whom  I  am 
beholden  for  letters,  recollections,  and  aid  are 
Miss  Heloise  E.  Hersey,  Mr.  Howells,  and  Pro 
fessor  Royce,  and,  to  add  those  who  are  no 
longer  living,  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich,  Daniel 

C.  Gilman,  and  Ralph  O.  Williams,  Yale,  '61. 

W.  B.  P. 

January  15, 1915. 


CONTENTS 

I.  ANCESTRY  AND  YOUTH          ....  1 

II.  His  LIFE  AT  COLLEGE      ....  12 

III.  THE  VOYAGE  'ROUND  THE  HORN          .        .  36 

IV.  CALIFORNIA 51 

V.  SETTLING  DOWN 86 

VI.  TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA         .        .        .131 

VII.  MAN  OF  LETTERS 190 

VIII.  THE  CRAFTSMAN 220 

IX.  AVE  ATQUE  VALE 295 

INDEX  305 


EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 


ANCESTRY   AND   YOUTH 

LIKE  most  American  men  of  letters  the 
author  of  "Opportunity"  and  "The  Fool's 
Prayer"  was  a  native  of  New  England.  He 
was  born  on  April  29,  1841,  in  Windsor,  af 
fectionately  called  "Ancient  Windsor,"  Con 
necticut,  where  his  parents,  his  grandparents, 
and  forbears,  reaching  back  to  the  foundation 
of  the  colony,  had  lived  before  him,  one  of  his 
ancestors  being  the  first  minister  of  the  church 
there  from  1630  to  1670.  His  ancestry  in 
cluded  some  of  the  best  stocks  of  New  Eng 
land —  Walcotts,  Grants,  Edwardses,  Ells 
worths,  Rowlands,  Allyns;  and  one  who  was 
curious  in  such  matters  might  trace  his  descent 
to  Sir  Thomas  Ware,  Knight,  of  Yorkshire, 
member  of  Parliament  in  1613,  and  auditor- 
general  of  Ireland,  or,  even  farther  back,  to 
Sir  Nicholas  Pyncheon,  of  Wales,  Sheriff  of 
London  in  1532. 

There  is  an  allusion  to  this  Welsh  strain  in 
his  ancestry,  which  had  a  sort  of  fascination 


2  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

for  Sill,  in  a  fragment  of  imaginative  prose  on 
"Can  Tunes  be  Inherited?" 

"I  have  Welsh  blood  in  my  family,  far  back 
on  my  mother's  side.  By  some  freak  of  hered 
ity  the  music  of  my  Welsh  ancestors  has  come 
down  through  six,  eight,  or  ten  generations,  as 
a  dormant  germ,  and  come  to  life  again  —  a 
dim,  somnolent,  imperfect  life,  to  be  sure  —  in 
a  corner  of  my  brain.  I  could  almost  fancy 
(though  this  I  do  not  soberly  believe,  for  it  is 
explicable  in  other  ways)  that_iherfi__has-conie 
down  with  it.  a.  visual  pirtnrp  of  wild  torchlight 
marchings  and  countermarchings  in  savage 
Welsh  glens.  So  plainly  do  I  see  in  my  brain 
.  .  .  visions  that  befit  this  strange,  barbaric 
music. 

"  I  see  mountain  gorges  at  night.  .  .  .  Wind 
ing  along  the  pass  comes  a  procession  of  my 
Keltic  ancestors:  it  is  a  burial  or  some  sav 
age  midnight  gathering  against  the  Saxon  in 
vader.  Red  torches  flare  in  the  midst  of  their 
smoke;  some  indistinct  dark  mass  is  borne 
among  the  leaders:  and  now  and  then  there 
are  metallic  gleams  along  the  vanishing  line. 
They  are  small,  dark  men,  half  clothed  in 
skins  of  beasts,  and  their  wild  eyes  shine  under 
streaming  locks  of  black  hair.  A  mountain 
stream  beside  them  flashes  its  white  bursts  of 
foam  out  of  the  darkness  under  the  crags,  and 
continually  there  rises  and  mingles  with  its 


ANCESTRY  AND  YOUTH  3 

roar  that  fierce  yet  woeful  music,  half  shouted 
and  half  sung." 

Coming  down  to  later  times :  An  ancestor  to 
whom  Sill  was  often  compared  was  the  Rever 
end  David  Sherman  Rowland,  who  was  born  in 
Fairfield  in  1719,  graduated  from  Yale  in  1743, 
and  became  at  once  pastor  over  the  church  in 
Northwest  Simsbury,  now  Granby,  Connecti 
cut.  TTft_wfl.g_p.  man  ftf  high-^pmt.  and  marked 
independence  of  character.  When,  in  1747,  he 
went  to  be  pastor  of  the  church  at  Plainfield, 
Connecticut,  he  found  some  opposition  to  his 
installation,  and  thereupon,  calling  together 
two  or  three  ministers,  installed  himself.  In 
1762,  he  became  pastor  of  the  Presbyterian  or 
Congregational  church  in  Providence,  where  he 
ranked  among  the  leading  clergymen  of  the 
day,  and  had  a  notable  part  in  the  struggle 
then  beginning  for  independence.  So  conspicu 
ous  was  he  on  the  side  of  the  colonists,  and  so 
obnoxious  to  the  British,  that  when  the  town 
of  Providence  was  invested,  he  was  obliged 
to  make  his  escape  with  his  family  in  a  sloop, 
getting  away  under  cover  of  night  through  the 
midst  of  the  enemy's  fleet.  Later  he  settled 
at  Windsor,  Connecticut,  and  became  pastor  of 
the  church,  which  was  the  oldest  Evangelical 
church  in  America,  and  with  the  exception  of 
the  Southwark  church,  London,  the  oldest 
orthodox  Congregational  church  in  the  world. 


4  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

His  son,  the  Reverend  Henry  Augustus  Row 
land,  Sill's  grandfather,  became  a  colleague 
with  his  father  in  the  Windsor  church  in  1790, 
and  served  as  pastor  until  the  year  of  his  death 
in  1835. 

On  his  father's  side,  Sill  was  descended  from 
a  race  of  physicians  and  surgeons.  During  the 
Revolutionary  War,  his  ancestor,  Dr.  Elisha 
Noyes  Sill,  served  with  General  Walcott's 
brigade  at  Saratoga,  and  later  in  Captain 
Spalding's  troop,  and  was  surgeon  to  the  Con 
necticut  troops  during  Burgoyne's  invasion. 
Sill's  father,  Dr.  Theodore  Sill,  and  his  father 
before  him,  were  physicians  in  Windsor,  where 
his  mother's  father  and  grandfather  were  min 
isters.  These  two  strains,  minister  and  doctor, 
mingled  in  Sill's  character  rather  curiously,  and 
give  some  explanation  to  the  conflicting  ten 
dencies  of  his  life.  His  father  was  one  of  the 
most  beloved  physicians  of  his  time,  and  his 
visits  were  so  welcome  that  it  was  said  that 
some  of  the  children  of  the  town  were  suspected 
of  playing  sick  so  as  to  have  Dr.  Sill  to  tend 
them.  It  was  from  his  mother,  Elizabeth  New- 
berry  Rowland,  that  Sill  inherited  his  brown 
hair  and  dark  gray  eyes:  for  he  was  decidedly 
a  Rowland  in  appearance.  She  is  described  as 
a  handsome  woman  with  a  certain  stateliness 
of  manner,  and  much  natural  distinction,  and 
is  still  remembered  as  an  intellectual,  quiet 


ANCESTRY  AND  YOUTH  5 

woman,  fond  of  the  few  good  books  of  the  day, 
with  a  special  love  for  poetry  and  a  tendency 
to  melancholy. 

A  classmate  writes  that  Sill  told  him  that 
this  came  to  her  son  as  an  aversion  from 
strangers  and  especially  from  crowds,  but  that 
Sill,  recognizing  it,  overcame  it  in  his  later 
years. 

His  father's  house  was  the  wide,  low-built 
white  house,  shaded  by  a  tall  tree,  that  looks 
obliquely  across  the  green  toward  the  old 
church  where  ancestors  both  on  the  maternal 
and  the  paternal  side  had  ministered.  Here 
Sill's  childhood  was  spent,  until  the  death  of 
his  mother,  when  he  was  eleven,  loosed  the  ties 
which  bound  his  father  to  Windsor,  and  led  to 
their  removal  to  the  West.  There  in  little  more 
than  a  year  his  father  died  also,  leaving  the  boy 
of  thirteen  alone  with  no  nearer  relatives  than 
uncles,  aunts,  and  cousins.  Shadowed  though 
his  youth  was  by  family  sorrows,  which  must 
have  added  to  his  naturally  serious  bent,- 
first  the  loss  of  his  only  brother,  drowned  while 
skating  on  the  Connecticut  River  when  Sill  was 
six  years  old,  the  death  of  his  mother,  five 
years  later,  followed  so  soon  by  the  death  of  his 
father,  —  the  boy  does  not  seem  ever  to  have 
been  morose  or  melancholy.  In  fact  the  only 
anecdotes,  if  they  deserve  to  be  called  such, 
which  are  recalled  of  his  early  years,  both  point 


6  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

to  an  abundance  of  spirit  which,  along  with  an 
underlying  seriousness,  marked  him  all  his  life. 

One  of  these  refers  to  his  flying  a  kite  on  the 
day  when  he  had  just  got  a  new  straw  hat.  The 
wind  being  high  and  the  kite  needing  more  bal 
last,  he  took  off  the  new  hat,  poked  a  hole 
through  the  rim,  tied  it  to  the  tail  of  the  kite, 
and  up  it  went,  somewhat  to  the  horror  of  his 
careful  aunt.  The  other  scrap,  which  appears 
to  belong  to  the  year  he  spent  at  Honesdale, 
Pennsylvania,  relates  the  capitulation  of  a 
teacher,  indicated  as  probably  Pennsylvania 
Dutch  by  the  dialect,  who,  having  resisted  as 
long  as  he  could  the  boy's  infectious  spirit, 
broke  out,  "Veil,  Sill,  I  dink  den  you  vas  dying, 
you  be  making  foolishness."  This  irrepressible 
playfulness  of  mood  he  seems  never  to  have 
lost :  it  was  one  of  the  qualities  which  he  had  in 
common  with  Matthew  Arnold  whom  he  re 
sembled  in  many  points,  and  calls  to  mind  Her 
bert  Paul's  remark  about  Arnold,  that  he  had 
a  constant  flow  of  high  spirits  which  he  never 
took  the  least  effort  to  restrain. 

Equally  slight  are  the  glimpses  of  his  boy 
hood  given  by  Sill  himself.  A  hint  of  his  com 
fortable  bringing-up,  and  a  stronger  intimation 
of  his  highly  sensitive  nervous  organization, 
are  given  in  a  sentence  or  two  from  an  unsigned 
essay  in  the  "Atlantic  Monthly."  "The  one 
daily  torture  of  my  own  otherwise  kindly 


ANCESTRY  AND  YOUTH  7 

handled  childhood  was  the  going  to  bed  in  the 
dark.  I  hated  the  dark,  and  have  always  hated 
it.  Why  could  not  some  softly  shaded  light 
have  been  left  for  me  to  go  to  sleep  by,  and 
then  withdrawn,  instead  of  crashing  down  on 
my  wide-awake  eyes  that  horrible  club  of 
blackness?" 

Of  veritable  boyhood  and  daylight  are  these 
passing  glimpses :  - 

"As  I  go  on  in  life,  I  find  that  two  or  three  of 
the  child's  great  spectacles  still  keep  for  me 
their  freshness.  One  of  these  is  the  elephant 
leading  the  circus  procession  through  the  vil 
lage  street.  I  never  could  see  it  enough,  that 
huge,  unearthly  shape,  moving  solemnly  along; 
flapping  its  wings  of  ears  not  for  common  and 
mundane  fly-guards,  but  in  some  mysterious 
gesture  or  ceremonial ;  bending  its  architectural 
legs  in  the  wrong  place;  waving  its  trunk  in 
incantation;  seeing  none  of  the  trivial  street 
matters  to  right  or  left,  but  absorbed  in  Orien 
tal  dreams.  I  used  to  think  it  strange  that 
people  who  were  rich  enough  should  not  have 
one  always  pacing  about  their  own  backyards. 

"Another  of  these  spectacles  of  childhood 
that  keeps  its  charm  for  me  is  the  locomotive  at 
full  speed.  .  .  .  But  the  sight  in  which  I  still 
take  the  most  childlike  delight  is  the  spring 
bonfire.  .  .  .  The  offending  sticks  and  straws  of 
last  year's  garden  life  are  gathered  together 


8  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

into  dry  and  light-tossed  piles.  Now  the  eager 
child  is  permitted,  if  he  is  good,  the  untold 
felicity  of  setting  off  the  bonfire. 

"I  am  thinking  of  the  early  spring  mornings 
in  boyhood,  when  we  used  to  go  to  the  Little 
River  to  take  up  the  gill-net  for  shad.  A  mist 
hung  on  the  smoothly  running  water;  there  was 
an  'Oriental  fragrancy'  of  spearmint  from  the 
moist  bank;  the  rattle  of  the  oar  in  the  rowlock 
sounded  preternaturally  loud,  echoing  under 
the  covered  bridge  at  that  perfectly  silent  hour. 
Then  we  boys  begin  to  lift  the  strained  top  line 
of  the  net,  pulling  the  skiff  along  by  means  of  it, 
in  a  moment  of  delicious  excitement.  What  is 
that  dim  spot  of  glimmering  gold,  far  down  in 
the  dark  waters?  It  grows,  as  we  eagerly  haul 
on  the  line,  and  the  little  waves  plashed  out  by 
the  boat  make  it  waver  and  break,  till  it  seems 
some  huge  and  splendid  prize  like  the  mysteri 
ous  casket  in  the  net  of  the  Arabian  fisherman." 

These  are  village  glimpses  —  and  of  a  New 
England  village,  such  as  Windsor  was  when  Sill 
was  growing  up  there  sixty  years  ago.  The 
staid,  frugal,  dignified  village  with  its  two  or 
three  hundred  inhabitants  was  an  almost  ideal 
place  for  children  to  grow  up  in.  The  Sills' 
house  was  one  of  the  pleasantest  in  the  village. 

Sill's  childhood  here  is  not  difficult  to  recon 
struct  in  fancy,  but  the  years  which  lie  between 
the  death  of  his  mother,  when  he  was  eleven, 


ANCESTRY   AND   YOUTH  9 

and  his  admission  to  Yale  at  sixteen,  are 
blurred.  Part  of  his  time  was  spent  at  his 
uncle's  in  Cuyahoga  Falls,  near  Cleveland, 
Ohio,  where  he  met  his  two  girl  cousins  and 
formed  an  attachment  for  one  of  them,  his  cou 
sin  Elizabeth  Sill,  which  ultimately  led  to  his 
marriage.  After  nearly  two  years  in  Ohio,  Sill 
went  to  spend  another  year  with  an  uncle  at 
Honesdale,  Pennsylvania,  and  following  that 
spent  a  year  at  Phillips  Exeter  Academy  com 
pleting  his  preparation  for  college.  It  is  rather 
singular  that  one  who  was  to  take  so  active  an 
interest  in  literary  pursuits  in  college  should 
have  given  no  sign  of  such  interest  during  his 
years  of  preparation.  The  one  recollection 
which  has  been  evoked  of  him  at  Exeter  is  that 
he  was  called  "Little  Sill." 

Yet  it  is  to  this  period  that  certain  fugitive 
jottings  of  reminiscence  belong  which  appear  in 
his  "Prose"  and  show  a  certain  feeling  for 
books  and  their  contents.  So  he  opens  the 
little  essay  on  "The  Most  Pathetic  Figure  in 
Story":  "When  I  was  a  boy,  the  fate  of  Evan- 
geline  the  Acadian  always  seemed  to  me  the 
most  piteous  of  all  that  I  had  ever  known.  Not 
so  much  at  the  end,  —  the  woefulness  of  that 
finding  of  her  lover  too  late  did  not  impress  me 
so  much  till  those  words  had  taken  on  their 
deeper  meaning  from  the  experience  of  life;  but 
the  perpetual  disappointment,  the  hope,  not 


10  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

crushed  and  ended,  but  continually  revived, 
only  to  be  the  'hope  deferred  that  maketh 
the  heart  sick,'  —  this  seemed  to  me  the  pity 
of  it." 

The  second  fragment  belongs  to  the  same 
sensitive  and  responsive  boyhood,  possibly  to 
the  year  spent  at  Exeter:  "It  was  in  a  Virgil 
class,  and  I  was  a  poor  little  palpitating  new 
scholar.  While  I  was  anxiously  construing  the 
opening  lines  of  the  Dido-in-the-storm  episode, 
the  beetle-browed  master  turned  slyly  to  a 
privileged  older  pupil  with  some  sotto  voce 
schoolmaster's  joke.  As  I  glanced  up,  having 
partly  heard  the  words  without  catching  the 
point,  he  was  just  turning  back  to  me,  with  a 
most  genial  and  winning  smile  sweetening  his 
usually  acid  features.  Innocently,  and  no 
doubt  with  some  timidly  responsive  look  on 
my  face,  I  said,  'What?'  But  on  the  instant  of 
speaking  I  divined  that,  alas !  the  grin  was  not 
meant  for  me.  .  .  .  He  bade  me  in  a  stern  voice 
to  'go  on.'  It  was  much  as  if  he  had  cried, 
'What  right  have  you  to  be  smiling  at  me,  you 
miserable  little  sinner  ? ' ' 

The  third  scrap  of  reminiscence  may  possibly 
belong  to  his  early  college  days  —  say  the 
Freshman  year,  when  we  are  prone  to  writing 
things  down  in  Commonplace  Books  and  the 
like:  — 

"  I  began,  when  a  boy,  to  keep  an  index 


EDWARD    R.    SILL.    1853 


ANCESTRY   AND   YOUTH  11 

rerum.  It  never  got  farther  than  a  beautifully 
arranged  table  of  contents,  and  a  few  scattering 
entries  made  while  the  volume  had  the  nutri 
tious  fragrance  of  the  bindery  still  upon  it. 
Among  these  entries,  on  a  page  headed  Simili 
tudes,  are  two  similes,  in  very  yellow  ink.  Now 
the  interesting  point  is  that  I  have  totally  for 
gotten  whether  they  were  original  or  selected. 
I  hope  they  were  my  own ;  but  they  sound  more 
as  if  they  might  have  come  from  Longfellow's 
*  Hyperion,'  or  from  some  'Conversation'  of 
Landor's.  It  may  be  that  every  schoolboy 
(except  myself)  will  recognize  and  locate  them. 
.  .  .  Here  they  are:  'This  earthly  life  is  like  an 
album  at  an  inn:  we  turn  over  its  pages  curi 
ously  or  wearily,  and  write  a  scrap  of  wisdom  or 
of  folly,  and  away.'  'He  who  has  loved  and 
served  an  art  is  like  the  child  that  was  nursed 
by  Persephone:  he  is  not  subject  to  the  woes  of 
other  men,  for  he  has  lain  in  the  lap  and  on  the 
bosom  of  a  goddess.' >: 


n\ 

HIS   LIFE  AT   COLLEGE 

SILL  entered  Yale  in  his  seventeenth  year,  a 
moderately  tall,  slender  youth  decidedly  hand 
some,  with  brown  hair,  gray  eyes,  and  the  stamp 
of  personality  which  marked  him  off  at  once 
from  the  crowd.  "We  have  n't  got  much  of  a 
class,"  wrote  one  of  his  classmates  (Governor 
Baldwin)  in  his  diary,  "but  Sill  is  somewhat  of 
a  genius,  to  be  sure."  Before  the  middle  of  the 
Freshmen  year  this  was  the  accepted  view  of 
him.  At  the  first  trials  of  literary  ability  —  the 
class  song  competition  —  Sill  was  seen  to  be 
easily  first,  and  he  soon  took  a  special  place 
among  his  classmates,  which  he  kept.  He  was 
no  athlete,  and  far  from  being  the  jovial  good 
fellow,  but  he  took  his  part  in  the  sports  and 
amusements  of  the  college,  played  a  creditable 
game  of  baseball,  and  held  his  own  in  the  little 
world  of  the  campus.  The  accounts  given  of 
him  by  his  contemporaries  indicate  that  he  led 
a  free,  open  life,  never  unduly  hampered  by 
college  rules  and  regulations,  reading  a  good 
deal  in  a  desultory  fashion,  and,  like  Lowell  at 
Harvard,  getting  rusticated  for  neglect  of  col 
lege  exercises.  It  is  entered  upon  the  records 


HIS  LIFE  AT  COLLEGE  13 

that  at  the  end  of  the  Freshman  year  the 
Faculty  voted  that  "E.  R.  Sill  ('61)  for  neg 
lecting  his  studies  shall  be  removed  from  col 
lege."  He  was  away  over  a  year.  Twenty- 
five  years  later,  when  writing  to  Thomas  Bailey 
Aldrich,  then  editor  of  the  "Atlantic,"  he  re 
marked  :  "  Let  me  confess,  since  I  am  addressing 
you  personally,  that  while  I  preach  college,  and 
believe  in  it,  I  was  myself  a  reckless  student. 
In  fact,  I  was  on  the  retired  list  for  a  consid 
erable  part  of  the  course  because  I  wouldn't 
pursue  the  curriculum,  and  would  pursue  liter 
ature."  An  instance  of  his  somewhat  cavalier 
attitude  toward  class  routine  is  recalled  by  a 
classmate.  It  was  the  custom  of  the  professor 
of  Greek  to  call  upon  members  of  the  class  to 
rise  and  read  aloud  passages  of  the  text,  giv 
ing  beat,  stress,  and  caesura.  To  this  exercise, 
called  "scanning,"  Sill  had  a  strong  distaste, 
and  among  the  reasons  for  his  rustication  was 
his  response,  a  response  given  with  an  air  of 
extreme  nonchalance,  when  called  upon  to  scan, 
"Please,  sir,  I  don't  scan." 

Some  notes  by  another  classmate  give  a  very 
good  background  for  the  figure  of  Sill  as  an 
undergraduate.  At  the  time  Sill  entered  Yale 
—  in  the  fall  of  1857  —  he  says:  — 

"It  was  in  many  respects  an  unreal  place. 
Despite  President  Woolsey's  abiding  interest 
and  influence  in  some  national  questions,  and 


14  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

he  was  about  the  only  man  in  the  faculty  who 
manifested  any,  the  institution  stood  apart 
from  both  the  acting  and  the  thinking  world. 
The  teaching  it  afforded  was,  with  slight  ex 
ceptions,  mere  rote  teaching. 

"Partly  because  of  poverty,  the  college  did 
not  contain  a  professor  of  history,  much  less  of 
American  history  —  that  subject  was  not  even 
touched;  a  professor  of  any  political  or  eco 
nomic  science;  or  a  professor  of  any  modern 
language.  Our  first  lesson  in  respect  for  law 
was  the  formal  presentation  to  each  of  us,  of 
'The Laws  of  Yale  College,'  and  the  exaction 
of  a  written  promise  to  obey  them.  They 
dated  from  an  earlier  generation,  had  not  been 
brought  up  to  date,  any  more  than  anything 
else  in  the  institution  had,  and  contained  some 
laws  that  nobody  thought  of  enforcing — among 
them,  laws  against  smoking  and  going  sailing. 
Our  respect  for  them  as  a  whole,  and  their  effect 
on  our  young  minds  regarding  laws  in  general, 
are  obvious. 

"As  to  literature,  we  had  recitations  only 
from  an  elaborately  and  dogmatically  anno 
tated  edition  of  Demosthenes'  'On  the  Crown,' 
in  the  original;  and  from  Whateley's  Rhetoric 
-  a  fantastic  book  which  lent  itself  wonder 
fully  to  undergraduate  fun-making.  The  liter 
atures  of  Greece  and  Rome  were  used  solely 
as  material  for  vocabulary  and  grammatical 


HIS  LIFE  AT  COLLEGE  15 

'  drills.5  There  was  not  a  man  in  the  faculty  who 
had  ever  done  anything  in  pure  literature;  or, 
so  far  as  I  can  recall,  anybody  but  Hadley  and 
Dana  and  Whitney,  the  last  two  of  whom  we 
scarcely  ever  saw,  who  ever  did  any  work  in 
anything  else  that  long  survived  them.  We 
wrote  'compositions '  three  or  four  times,  which 
were  read  to  the  class  (or  rather  to  each  writer's 
one  of  its  four  divisions)  and  never  criticized, 
and  we  had  a  few  'disputes'  by  groups  se 
lected  in  turn,  before  the  'division,'  which 
were  'summed  up'  and  commented  upon,  with 
considerable  literary  instinct  whenever  Hadley 
presided.  The  topics  set  for  these  exercises 
were  occasionally  criticism  of  some  author,  but 
were  equally  apt  to  be  some  question  outside 
of  practical  life,  and  often  outside  of  practical 
consideration  —  for  instance,  one,  I  remember, 
was:  'Is  Language  of  Divine  or  Human  Ori 
gin?'  That  question  is  a  fair  illustration  of 
what  was,  on  the  whole,  the  dominating  spirit 
of  the  college  —  theological  speculation.  The 
Puritan  influence  still  controlled.  The  officers, 
as  has  been  intimated,  were  nearly  all  Puritan 
clergymen,  holding,  in  the  midst  of  the  nine 
teenth  century,  the  views  they  had  inherited 
from  the  seventeenth,  and  avoiding  and  dread 
ing  the  stir  of  thought  which  was  beginning  to 
tear  down  their  whole  system.  The  names  of 
Carlyle,  Darwin  and  Mill  were  never  mentioned 


16  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

in  the  classroom,  and  the  only  notions  given  us 
of  the  doctrine  of  evolution,  which  had  begun 
to  take  form,  were  in  a  lecture  on  Laplace's  law 
of  planetary  evolution,  and  in  a  few  then  cele 
brated  lectures  by  Dana,  read  to  us,  in  his  dis 
ability,  by  another.  In  them  he  tried  to  dem 
onstrate  that  the  evolution  of  the  earth,  and 
the  life  upon  it,  was  in  accord  with  the  account 
given  in  Genesis. 

"Most  of  the  men  who  regulated  the 
'thought'  of  the  institution  were  clergymen. 
Its  trustees  practically  all  were,  the  'six  senior 
senators'  of  the  State  being  mere  figureheads, 
and  the  representation  of  the  alumni  not  yet 
having  been  instituted. 

"On  one  side,  the  atmosphere  of  the  place 
was  all  'discipline.'  We  were  taught  to  over 
come  obstacles  by  obstacles  being  deliberately 
massed  before  us,  as  if  learning  in  its  most 
attractive  forms  did  not  present  more  than 
enough.  In  addition  to  the  bare  chronology  of 
classic  history,  we  were  asked  to  commit  to 
memory  a  murderous  pamphlet  of  chemical 
formulas.  The  test  of  merit,  rewarded  with  the 
honors,  was  the  capacity  to  recite  well.  A  rote 
repetition  of  the  contents  of  the  textbook 
answered  the  purpose  as  well  as  intelligent 
appreciation.  Originality  in  any  form  was  not 
stimulated,  though  one  'composition'  (never 
criticized)  did  count  as  much  as  several  reci- 


HIS  LIFE  AT  COLLEGE  17 

tations.  When  President  Woolsey  offered  to 
cushion  the  bare  seats  in  the  chapel  at  his  own 
expense,  the  proposition  was  turned  down  as 
tending  to  make  the  students  effeminate. 

"To  this  hated  chapel,  we  were  driven  twice 
a  day  and  four  times  on  Sunday,  one  of  the 
daily  herdings  being  before  daylight  in  win 
ter.  Some  compensation  for  these  monastic 
rigors  lies  in  the  fact  that  during  one  of  them, 
Sill  got  the  idea  for  *  Morning,'  and  it  sym 
bolized  his  feeling  regarding  the  lights  our 
teachers  read  by. 

"In  short,  everything  was  done  to  make 
learning  and  religion  loathsome,  and  done  with 
considerable  success.  Yet,  as  a  body,  the  college 
officers  were  men  of  admirable  sincerity  and 
purity  of  life,  But  with,  so  far  as  I  know,  one 
exception,  as  to  capacity  to  see  beyond  their 
narrow  range  of  dogma,  they  may  as  well  have 
been  monks  of  the  Thebaid,  or  priests  of  a 
lamasery  in  Thibet.  That  exceptional  man  — 
perhaps  the  most  eminent  scholar  America  has 
produced  —  we  were  hardly  brought  in  contact 
with;  and  I  did  not  suspect  his  largeness  of 
view  until  we  became  intimate,  years  after  my 
graduation.  With  pathetic  self-repression,  he 
stayed  at  Yale  while  out  of  sympathy  with  his 
colleagues  and  the  whole  intellectual  spirit  of 
the  place.  There  may  have  been  others  who 
thought  beyond  their  inherited  dogmas,  but  if 


18  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

there  were,  they  kept  their  thoughts  to  them 
selves,  as  he  did.  Yet  all  those  men  gave  us  a 
rare  example  of  single-hearted,  self-sacrificing, 
and  unswerving  devotion  to  duty,  as  they  saw 
it.  But  they  had  not  the  gift  to  see  much  of  it, 
and  so  their  example  lacked  inspiration.  It  is 
astounding  that  so  much  knowledge  (one 
sided  though  it  was)  and  so  much  moral  worth 
could  have  existed  side  by  side  with  so  much 
obtuseness.  Yet  the  explanation  is  not  far  to 
seek:  a  generation  earlier,  a  bright  man  could 
have  been  a  Puritan;  but  in  that  generation, 
there  had  been  so  much  stir  of  thought  that 
none  but  a  stupid  man  could  grow  up  a  Puritan. 
Some  of  the  older  men  were  bright,  but  their 
ideas  were  out  of  date.  No  younger  man  could 
be  brought  in  unless  he  was  a  Puritan,  and 
therefore  no  younger  man  abreast  with  the  day 
was  among  the  college  officers.  The  scholarship 
was  a  narrow  formalism.  In  the  classroom, 
even  Hadley,  deep  and  broad  as  was  his  cul 
ture,  confined  himself  to  Homer's  grammar, 
with  little  or  no  reference  to  his  poetry;  though, 
as  already  intimated,  in  his  comments  on  some 
of  our  scant  rhetorical  efforts,  he  showed  him 
self  a  delicate  and  suggestive  critic. 

"Offsetting  the  atmosphere  of  'discipline' 
was  one  of  mediaeval,  almost  primitive,  super 
stition,  mysticism,  and  dread.  The  students 
were  affected  by  it  so  that  their  voluntary  asso- 


HIS  LIFE  AT  COLLEGE  19 

ciations,  instead  of  being  natural  gentlemen's 
clubs,  were  'secret  societies,'  designated  by  the 
usual  mystic  Greek  letters,  meeting  as  far  as 
they  could  in  secret  places,  with  secret  rites  and 
strange  initiations  and  mummeries.  The  chief 
of  them  had  and  still  has,  as  a  badge,  a  gold 
skull  with  crossed  bones,  each  member  dis 
playing  in  his  room,  over  the  entrance,  the  real 
objects  themselves.  Merely  to  allude  to  this 
society  in  the  presence  of  one  of  its  members 
was  to  insult  him  and  lead  him  to  withdraw 
from  the  company.  To  become  one  of  its  fif 
teen  members  in  senior  year  was  the  controlling 
ambition  of  the  other  three  years.  The  halls  of 
these  societies  were  used  but  one  evening  a 
week.  At  that  time  Skull  and  Bones  was  the 
only  one  having  its  own  building.  To  guard 
its  secrecy,  it  was  made,  as  many  halls  have 
since  been  for  other  societies,  without  windows. 
Even  a  generation  later,  one  of  the  societies  has 
reared  a  superb  (though  rather  poorly  propor 
tioned)  white  marble  Greek  temple,  lit  by  the 
sun  only  through  a  skylight  over  its  second 
story.  The  idea  of  a  rational  clubhouse  to  be 
enjoyed  at  all  times,  as  the  society  buildings 
are  at  other  institutions,  was,  and  generally 
still  is,  too  rational  to  fit  the  prevalent  atmos 
phere.  Health,  of  course,  was  not  taken  into 
consideration. 

"Athletics  in  the  present  sense  had  not  been 


20  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

evolved.  Each  class  had  three  or  four  boat- 
clubs,  crews  from  which  used  to  go  rowing  in 
gigs  on  Wednesday  and  Saturday  afternoons, 
and  occasionally  at  other  times,  and  frequently 
took  out  guests  —  not  seldom  ladies,  in  the 
stern  seats.  The  Wednesday  and  Saturday 
rows  were  curtailed  by  the  necessity  of  getting 
back  to  'prayers/  Sill  joined  one  of  these  clubs 
in  Freshman  year,  and  pulled  a  fairly  good  oar. 
The  club  came  to  grief,  owing  to  a  certain  un- 
congeniality  between  the  faculty's  system  of 
things  and  the  tastes  and  convictions  of  some 
of  the  club's  members,  including  the  captain, 
which  led  to  the  temporary  separation  of  these 
members  from  the  institution. 

"This  uncongeniality  between  students  and 
faculty  was  general  and  chronic.  As  there  was 
no  congeniality,  far  less  was  there  any  intimacy. 
The  faculty  generally  consisted  (with  the  ex 
ception  of  the  instructor  of  elocution,  of  whom 
we  saw  little)  of  men  who  had  never  been 
young.  The  idea  of  teacher  and  student  spend 
ing  an  hour  together,  outside  of  the  effort  on 
one  side  to  detect  ignorance,  and,  on  the  other, 
to  conceal  it,  was  seldom  thought  of  before 
dear  Timothy  Dwight  got  back  from  Europe, 
after  Sill's  graduation;  the  idea  of  playing  a 
game  together  would  have  been  ludicrous;  the 
idea  of  having  a  smoke  together  would  have 
been  insulting  to  the  older  men;  and  the  idea 


HIS  LIFE  AT  COLLEGE  21 

of  taking  a  drink  together,  criminal.  Once 
when  I  was  'called  up'  for  some  of  my  many 
peccadilloes,  after  I  claimed  that  I  was  not 
given  to  strong  drink,  the  argument  against 
me  was  clinched  with:  'But  you  admit  that 
you  play  billiards  and  drink  wine.'  The  rela 
tion  between  students  and  faculty,  on  the  part 
of  the  boyish  boys  and  most  of  the  thinking 
boys,  was  at  best  one  of  sullen  indifference, 
and  at  worst  one  of  strategic  hostility.  A  stu 
dent  absent  from  one  of  the  sixteen  religious 
exercises  a  week,  or  one  of  the  sixteen  literary 
ones,  or  unprepared  for  one  of  the  latter,  was 
permitted  to  hand  in  a  written  excuse.  The 
attitude  of  strategic  hostility  made,  to  the 
student  mind,  everything  fair  in  war,  and  these 
excuses  were  very  often  lies.  'Indisposition' 
was  the  euphemism  at  the  base  of  most  of 
them,  and  it  generally  meant  indisposition  to 
attend  or  to  study.  I  doubt  if  Sill  handed  in 
any  of  these  false  excuses,  and  I  am  confident 
that  Shearer  [Sill's  closest  friend,  of  whom 
more  later,]  did  not,  but  neither  of  them 
lacked  respect  for  anybody  else  because  he 
did. 

"In  telling  all  this,  I  feel  a  little  as  if  I  were 
sinning  with  the  sons  of  Noah;  but  it  must  be 
told  to  explain  Sill  —  to  explain  the  gropings 
and  vacillations  and  struggles  that  his  early 
letters  are  full  of. 


22  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

"Into  the  atmosphere  I  have  tried  to  de 
scribe,  our  poet  was  thrust  when  he  was  a  boy 
of  less  than  seventeen.    The  class,  of  course, 
contained  a  group  of  youths  who,  like  their 
teachers,  had  never  been  superfluously  young, 
took  things  as  they  were  given  them,  and  did 
their  best  with  them  —  'not  theirs  to  ask  the 
reason  why.5    Sill  did  not  see  much  of  this 
conservative  element  in  the  class  until  he  met 
some  of  them  in  Skull  and  Bones  in  senior 
year.    There  was,  equally  of  course,  another 
group  full  of  young  blood,  much  of  it  foolish 
blood,  some  of  whom  did  'ask  the  reason  why,' 
and  found  precious  little  reason.  Nearly  all 
of  them  played  much,  only  one  or  two  of  them 
studied  much,  two  or  three  of  them  questioned 
much,  several  of  them  read  much  —  some  in 
books  that  the  faculty  would  not  have  recom 
mended,  and  all  of  them  were  in  a  state  of 
more  or  less  intellectual  revolt.   Some  of  them 
believed  as  long  as  they  lived,  and  some  of 
them  believe  to  this  day,  that  their  revolt 
was  well  justified.  To  this  group  Sill  naturally 
gravitated.   He  was  perhaps  the  leader  in  the 
spirit  of  revolt.   He  was  far-seeing.    His  alter 
ego,  Shearer,  was  in  the  same  group;  but  he  was 
wide-seeing  as  well  as  far-seeing,  and  while  he 
shared  the  spirit  of  revolt,  he  was,  both  by  dis 
position  and  comprehension,  made  to  temper  it. 
"Sill   and   Shearer   were   both   poor,   and 


HIS  LIFE  AT  COLLEGE  23 

'pleasure'  costs  money.  They  were  also  proud 
and  scrupulous :  so,  even  if  their  disposition  had 
been  toward  excess,  it  would  not  have  been  as 
easy  to  them  as  to  some  of  their  friends.  Sill 
did  most  of  the  foolish  things  that  were  not 
dishonest  which  the  other  boys  did,  but  his 
native  delicacy  made  the  restraint  of  his  pov 
erty  superfluous  in  keeping  him  from  any  gross 
excess.  While  his  principles  were  more  those  of 
Socrates  than  of  St.  Francis,  his  practice  was 
nearer  that  of  St.  Francis  than  of  Socrates. 
However  pagan  he  may  have  been,  it  is  incon 
ceivable  that  he  would  have  deliberately  pur 
sued  his  own  pleasure  to  the  detriment  of 
another.  He  would  take  his  share  of  the  flowing 
bowl,  unless  his  full  share  would  have  been  too 
much,  in  which  case  there  were  always  others 
ready  to  take  the  excess  for  him;  but  he  was  not 
intolerant  of  these  friends,  if  otherwise  they 
merited  his  regard  —  not  half  as  intolerant  as 
he  was,  at  first,  of  intellectual  inferiority.  This 
absolutely  prevented  him,  at  first,  from  recog 
nizing  the  merits  of  some  of  the  most  lovable 
fellows  and  finest  characters  in  the  class.  But 
he  outgrew  it,  and  became  a  man  of  very  wide 
sympathies  and  charitable  judgments. 

"Not  having  grown  up  in  the  world  where 
one  amuses  one's  self;  going  to  Puritan  Yale 
where  that  world  was  unknown  and  abhorred, 
instead  of  to  Harvard  where  it  was  known  and 


24  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

appreciated;  realizing  its  Philistine  side,  and 
having  no  opportunity  to  enjoy  its  aesthetic 
side,  Sill  hated  it  and  every  symbol  of  it. 
*  Society '  he  would  have  nothing  of.  When  his 
beauty  and  eloquence  made  all  the  girls,  after 
they  heard  him  deliver  the  class  poem,  wild  to 
have  him  introduced,  he  stubbornly  refused, 
even  his  dearest  who  wanted  to  introduce  him 
to  their  dearest.  Yet  we  know  that,  outside  of 
'  social  occasions,'  no  man  was  more  attracted 
by  women. 

"Some  of  the  lines  from  the  class  poem,  not 
printed  in  the  later  selections,  illustrate  his 
attitude  toward  the  world  at  this  time :  — 

"'The  world!   The  world! 
Mockery,  knavery,  cheat! 
Down  at  thy  angry  feet 
Let  the  lying  thing  be  hurled. 

"None  of  his  portraits  do  him  justice.  They 
all  strangely  fail  to  give  his  face  the  character 
—  or  enough  of  the  character  —  which  would 
have  led  any  observer  to  say: ( There  is  a  poet.' 
He  had  the  most  wonderful  gray  eyes  I  ever 
saw;  his  wavy  chestnut  hair  was  just  what  it 
should  have  been;  he  wore  no  beard  until  he 
was  thirty  or  forty,  and  was  better  without  it. 
I  believe  he  always  wore  a  mustache,  having,  if 
I  remember  rightly,  an  enviable  amount  of  it 
when  we  were  freshmen.  His  figure  was  moder 
ately  tall,  and  slight  —  too  slight,  but  very 


HIS  LIFE   AT   COLLEGE  25 

graceful.  We  used  to  make  fun  of  his  lank 
shanks.  But  one  day  when  I,  who  was  taller 
and  much  heavier,  put  on  the  boxing  gloves 
with  him,  I  realized  to  my  cost  that  strength 
was  not  an  affair  of  muscle  alone.  By  sheer 
nerve,  he  could  do  things  that  men  with  much 
more  muscle  could  not.  I  suppose  he  had  to 
pay  for  it  in  subsequent  fatigue. 

"  Despite  his  slight  figure,  he  had  a  beautiful 
rich  bass  voice;  and  he  had,  of  course,  as  lyric 
poets  must,  a  genius  for  music.  He  could  play 
on  any  instrument  he  took  a  notion  to,  with 
very  little  practice.  Yet  I  don't  remember  that 
he  sang  in  the  choir.  Perhaps  he  would  have 
been  apt  to  refrain  in  those  rebellious  years, 
because  of  distaste  for  the  service. 

"Though  he  was  so  frail-looking,  I  don't 
remember  that  he  ever  lacked  health,  though 
I  find  some  anxieties  expressed  in  some  of 
Shearer's  letters  after  graduation;  but  they 
were  mainly,  perhaps  entirely,  lest  nervous 
taxes  and  uncongenialities  should  be  too  much 
for  him.  There  was  no  need  of  his  dying  young, 
as  we  too  sadly  know. 

"Carlyle  was  probably  the  great  teacher  of 
most  of  us.  It  was  too  early  for  Mill  and 
Spencer.  Sill's  chief  influence  was  Tennyson. 
We  all  read  Emerson  and  Macaulay.  Browning 
we  do  not  seem  to  have  got  to :  we  knew  his  wife 
better:  she  was  nearer  our  then  level.  There  is 


26  EDWAKD  ROWLAND  SILL 

little  indication  of  our  then  having  much  to  do 
with  Shakespeare.  Sill  does  not  even  include 
him  among  the  poets  in  the  letter  of  a  year 
before  his  death,  quoted  in  the  memoir  prefac 
ing  the  edition  of  1902;  but  in  his  letter  to  me 
of  December  24, 1868,  from  California,  he  says: 
*  There's  one  compensation  in  living  in  a 
heathen  country  —  i.e.,  that  one's  only  com 
panions  are  Shakespeare  and  Shelley  and  Mill 
and  Browning  and  Spencer  and  the  others.' 
Like  our  college  teachers,  we  as  boys  lived  most 
in  speculations  and  dreams. 

"Nearly  all  the  prizes  offered  by  the  faculty 
or  the  students  for  any  feats  but  those  of  mem 
ory  and  linguistic  or  mathematical  skill,  were 
divided  about  equally  between  Sill  and  Shearer. 
Of  course  they  were  elected  on  the  'Lit. 
Board,'  and  their  contributions  were  awaited 
more  eagerly,  probably,  than  other  contribu 
tions  ever  were,  by  the  whole  college  world:  for 
the  recognition  of  them  was  not  confined  to 
their  own  class.  And  of  course  they  were 
elected  (unanimously,  I  believe)  Class  Poet 
and  Class  Orator,  though  their  'scholarship' 
under  the  rote  tests  applied  by  the  faculty,  did 
not  entitle  them  to  an  appearance  on  either  of 
the  stupid  occasions  (Junior  Exhibition  and 
Commencement)  which  the  faculty  provided  to 
display  the  stupid  results  of  their  system. 

"Sill's  independence,  and  the  environment 


HIS  LIFE   AT   COLLEGE  27 

in  which  he  grew  up,  were  both  well  illustrated 
in  the  great  religious  revival  of  '58.  This,  of 
course,  set  in  as  soon  as  spring  began  to  stir 
people's  emotions  after  the  great  commercial 
panic  in  the  fall  of  '57.  But  instead  of  being 
restricted,  as  such  phenomena  have  been  since, 
mainly  to  those  whose  psychic  stock-in-trade 
was  merely  emotional,  it  was  taken  up  by  peo 
ple  of  culture  (for  those  days),  and  by  none 
more  ardently  than  the  faculty  of  Yale.  The 
whole  college  was  swept  off  its  feet.  In  our 
class,  Sill,  Shearer,  and  one  other  were,  I  be 
lieve,  the  only  men  who  did  not  join  the  church. 
I  have  an  impression  that  they  were  about  the 
only  ones  in  the  academic  department.  The 
reaction  was  frightful.  There  probably  never 
was  at  Yale  such  an  orgy  of  dissipation  as  dur 
ing  the  following  autumn  —  certainly  there 
was  nothing  like  it  in  my  time.  This,  of  course, 
doubled  the  skepticism  of  those  who  were  out 
of  sympathy  with  the  prevailing  ideas,  and  left 
them  in  a  more  chaotic  state  than  ever.  Spen 
cer  had  not  yet  put  within  general  reach  his 
point  of  crystallization  for  faith  and  hope, 
and  thinking  young  men  were  in  the  dark  and 
anxious  atmosphere  that  pervaded  Sill's  and 
Shearer's  early  letters,  and  Sill's  early  poems." 

From  the  pen  of  still  another  classmate, 
Ralph  O.  Williams,  I  take  a  sketch  of  Sill  at 


28  EDWAKD  ROWLAND  SILL 

Yale,  interesting  not  only  because  it  is  done  by 
a  contemporary,  but  also  because  it  reveals  the 
unusual  and  deep  regard  which  Sill  inspired  in 
those  who  knew  him,  whether  early  or  late  in 
his  life:  — 

"There  is  lying  near  me  a  photographic  por 
trait  of  Edward  Rowland  Sill  taken  in  his  senior 
year  at  Yale  College  when  he  was  not  quite 
.twenty  years  old.  It  is  on  glass,  —  an  old- 
fashioned  'ambrotype.'  I  have  seen  perhaps 
half  a  dozen  later  photographs  of  Sill,  taken  at 
various  periods  of  his  life,  but  all  the  others 
made  him  less  than  he  was.  The  picture  before 
me  reveals  his  extraordinary  eyes,  —  large, 
oval,  deep  eyes,  whose  light  seemed  to  come 
from  the  recesses  of  a  reflective  mind,  —  a 
penetrating  light  which  disclosed  the  thoughts 
of  those  whom  it  rested  on.  People  who  had 
never  seen  or  heard  of  Sill,  looking  at  this  pic 
ture,  have  exclaimed, "  What  wonderful  eyes ! "  1 
In  other  respects,  too,  the  picture  is  faithful. 
Sill  was  hardly  more  than  a  boy  then,  but 
much  more  than  a  boy  in  mind  and  character. 
His  face  —  of  regular,  handsome  features  — 
seemed  to  be  the  face  of  one  who  had  never  had 
a  mean  impulse.  It  showed  independence  of 
judgment,  but  not  aggressiveness.  Notwith 
standing  its  mobility  of  expression,  it  was  a 

1  Some  of  the  paper  photographs  of  Sill  give  his  eyes  a  staring 
look,  —  a  fault  probably  introduced  in  retouching  the  negatives. 


HIS  LIFE  AT   COLLEGE  29 

calm  face,  quite  unconscious  of  itself,  thought 
ful,  spiritual,  considerate  of  others.  As  to  the 
rest  of  his  personality  at  that  time,  he  was  fully 
grown  in  height,  straight,  slim,  not  muscular, 
and  in  seeming  good  health,  — though  his 
health,  without  being  decidedly  bad,  was  not 
good.  His  dress  was  careless,  but  never  slov 
enly. 

"Sill's  course  in  college  could  hardly  have 
been  different;  at  least,  that  must  seem  so  to 
those  who  consider  his  temperament.  By  dis 
position  he  was  eager  of  instruction  and  learn 
ing;  he  liked  to  think  things  out;  but  he  was 
revolted  by  lessons  that  were  to  be  recited 
parrot-like  for  a  daily  mark.  Naturally  he  took 
as  little  of  the  lessoning  as  possible.  But  I 
never  heard  Sill  speak  unkindly  of  the  wise  men 
of  down  east  who  were  doing  it.  He  thought 
they  were  not  in  the  best  way;  perhaps  some  of 
them,  or  some  of  their  successors,  would  find  a 
better  way  later. 

"In  such  opportunities  as  there  were  for 
exercising  his  literary  power  Sill  shone  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end  of  the  college  course.  His 
poem  'The  Open  Polar  Sea'  was  printed  in  the 
'Yale  Literary  Magazine'  for  April,  1858,  while 
he  was  in  his  freshman  year.  It  was  published 
as  'From  the  German  of  Malvaro,'  because  the 
young  freshman  feared  that  the  senior  editors 
of  the  magazine  would  have  a  poor  opinion  of  a 


SO  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

freshman's  output.  The  poem  now  entitled 
'Morning,'  and  beginning:  — 

"'I  entered  once,  at  break  of  day, 
A  chapel  lichen-stained  and  gray, '  — 

appeared  in  the  'Yale  Lit.'  for  June,  1860.  At 
that  time  Sill  was  near  the  close  of  his  junior 
year  and  was  one  of  the  editors  of  the  magazine. 
It  happened  that  I  saw  a  proof  of  the  poem  at 
the  printer's  just  as  the  'Lit.'  was  going  to 
press.  It  differed  verbally  somewhat  from  the 
one  printed  many  years  later  among  his  col 
lected  poems,  and  had  as  a  concluding  line, 
rhyming  with  the  two  immediately  preceding 
lines,  'Was  there  not  meaning  in  my  dreams.' 
On  my  own  responsibility  (for  there  was  not  a 
moment's  time  for  consulting  the  poet),  I 
struck  out  that  last  line,  because,  as  I  told 
Sill  afterwards,  'a  fingerpost  wasn't  needed/ 
Instead  of  being  vexed,  he  was  grateful.  The 
poem  is  a  good  example  of  how  a  trivial  inci 
dent  which  to  the  barren  imagination  has  no 
significance  can  be  made  to  glow  by  a  poet's 
touch.  The  'chapel'  was  the  old  college  chapel, 
but  not  the  one  that  is  used  for  religious  serv 
ices  now.  The  time  was  earlier  than  the  com 
position.  It  was  of  the  days  when  we  had  to 
attend  prayers  at  half  past  five  on  summer 
mornings  and  at  half -past  six  winter  mornings. 
There  was  no  'rich  stained  glass'  in  the  chapel, 
nor  an  aisle  in  the  architectural  sense.  There 


HIS  LIFE   AT   COLLEGE  31 

were  'ghostly  shadows,'  and  'the  congregation 
dozed,'  no  doubt,  excepting  those  who  with 
bowed  heads  were  conning  the  lesson  for  the 
succeeding  recitation.  The  shutter  was  shifted 
by  a  gust  of  wind,  not  by  one  '  who  rose  with  a 
wistful  face.'  A  dismal  scene,  and  lowering  in 
its  influences;  but  with  what  charming  color 
the  boy  artist  overlaid  the  unwholesome  fact. 
"In  writing  for  college  prizes,  —  although 
he  was  always  successful,  —  Sill  put  under  con 
straint  his  best  impulses;  for  he  never  had  any 
desire  to  shine  at  the  expense  of  others,  and, 
besides,  he  looked  on  such  contests  as  boyish. 
But  he  wanted  to  measure  himself  with  others 
so  as  to  get  a  scale  of  judgment,  boy  with  boys, 
man  with  men  later.  Prizes  for  literary  com 
position  brought  him  no  elation,  only  a  useful 
stiffening  of  self-confidence.  And  that  he 
needed.  But  although  he  had  such  feelings,  I 
am  sure,  about  college  honors,  Sill  then  and 
always  hungered  for  real  distinction.  Com 
monplace  successes  that  tickle  the  vanity  and 
fill  the  wants  of  most  men  had  for  him  no 
attractions." 

Sill's  life  at  Yale  fell  at  a  time  when  the  in 
tellectual  ferment  of  the  past  forty  years  was 
being  prepared.  Though  the  academic  com 
munity  at  Yale  was  for  the  most  part  immune, 
some  of  the  yeast  of  question  and  revolt  was 


32  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

stirring  in  his  mind  and  in  the  minds  of  his 
friends.  The  first  edition  of  Darwin's  "Origin 
of  Species"  came  out  during  his  freshman  year; 
Huxley  had  not  come  yet,  but  Carlyle  and 
Tennyson  were  sowing  inquiry  broadcast.  The 
unconventionality  and  austere  discontent  of 
Carlyle  appealed  strongly  to  Sill.  With  his  eyes 
already  opened  to  the  inequalities  of  life,  the 
Scot's  grim  challenge  of  accepted  conditions 
awoke  in  him  an  eager  emulation.  All  his 
writing  in  college  echoes  of  Carlyle.  "Poor 
petrifactions  of  men!"  he  writes  in  the  first 
essay  he  contributed  to  the  "Yale  Literary 
Magazine."  "...  One  shudders  even  to  imag 
ine  you,  at  the  last,  when  the  great  veil  is  being 
lifted,  with  your  weazened,  world-crusted  soul, 
cringing  into  the  dim  outskirts  of  the  presence 
of  the  Eternal." 

But  however  much  the  phrase  echoed  Car 
lyle,  the  thought  was  Sill's  own.  So  in  the  essay 
"Beardless,"  which  also  appeared  in  the  "Yale 
Lit."  at  this  time,  there  is  an  appeal  for  com 
panionship  and  comprehension  of  younger  men 
by  their  elders  which  influenced  his  cwn  life 
consistently  and  was  one  of  the  secrets  of  his 
success  as  a  teacher. 

"For  it  is  certain  that  I  at  fifty  will  look  back 
at  me  of  to-day,  quite  contemptuously  and 
pityingly;  wondering  how,  knowing  so  little,  we 
'get  along'  at  all.  O  foolish  future  self!  thou 


EDWARD   R.    SILL,    1861 


HIS  LIFE   AT   COLLEGE  33 

has  forgotten  how  much  nobler-hearted,  holier- 
souled  thou  was  then  than  now.  Thou  art 
larger  limbed  now,  stronger  brained,  yet  thy 
boyhood  had  clearer  eyes  and  purer  faith,  and 
was  altogether,  inwardly  and  outwardly,  more 
as  God  meant  man  to  be.  Marred  and  soul- 
shrunken  by  the  meanness  and  littleness  of  a 
man's  daily  life  in  the  world,  no  wonder  thou 
hast  forgotten  the  vision  of  the  morning,  the 
dream  of  a  life  that  should,  for  once,  be  crowned 
with  completeness  and  with  noble  meaning. 
We  can  but  pity  one  another  after  all,  thou 
conquered  by  the  world,  I  with  the  world  be 
fore  me,  unconquerable,  and  yet  that  must  be 
met." 

His  other  undergraduate  essays-  "Fail 
ure,"  a  rather  scathing  analysis  of  current 
views  of  success,  and  "Vinum  Daimonum,"  a 
defence  of  poetry,  are  in  the  customary  vein  of 
the  young  idealist.  It  goes  without  saying  his 
poems  were  even  more  uncompromising  in  their 
morality  and  sombre  in  their  tone.  There  is 
something  perennially  youthful  in  the  solem 
nity  of  the  lines  called  "Midnight,"  and  some 
thing  familiar  in  the  note  of  sophomoric  wis 
dom  and  world- weariness :  - 

"Under  the  stars,  across  whose  patient  eyes 
The  wind  is  brushing  flecks  of  filmy  cloud, 
I  wait  for  kindly  night  to  hush  and  calm 
The  wrangling  throng  of  cares  and  discontents, 
The  tangled  troubles  of  a  feverish  brain. 


34  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

"I  hear  the  rushing  of  the  wings  of  Time 
Sweep  by  me.    Voices  of  the  murmuring  Past 
Chant  a  low  dirge  above  my  kneeling  heart." 

The  university  years  over,  Sill  found  himself 
in  his  twenty-first  year  undecided  about  his 
future,  and  quite  undetermined  about  himself. 
His  four  years  at  New  Haven  had  brought  him 
friendships  which  he  kept  till  he  died,  and  a 
discovery  of  talents  and  possibilities  in  himself 
which  he  had  not  the  slightest  notion  how  to 
turn  to  account.  His  college  mates  and  teach 
ers  thought  him  a  poet  —  almost  a  genius, 
with  a  brilliant  future:  he  knew  himself  for  a 
youth  —  let  us  admit  of  some  promise,  but  of 
slender  resources  and  no  clear  course  before 
him.  He  had  plunged  into  his  Sturm  und  Drang 
period,  but  had  not  yet  emerged  from  it:  he 
had  reached  the  stage  of  revolt,  but  had  not 
arrived  at  a  fixed  purpose;  he  had  not  found  the 
cause  or  the  career  to  which  he  could  dedicate 
himself.  Sprung  from  the  stock  of  the  Sills  and 
the  Rowlands,  he  could  hardly  help  being  an 
abolitionist,  but  abolitionism,  which  had  fired 
many  of  the  more  sensitive  souls  at  Harvard, 
had  not  blazed  up  at  Yale.  There  was  no  such 
outbreak  of  patriotism  in  New  Haven  as  at 
Cambridge.  In  Sill's  "  Commencement  Poem," 
with  all  its  spiritual  ardor  and  aspiration,  the 
only  allusion  to  the  war  is  merely  scornful:  — 
"What  is  the  grandeur  of  serving  a  state, 


HIS   LIFE   AT   COLLEGE  35 

whose  tail  is  stinging  its  head  to  death  like  a 
scorpion!" 

Years  were  to  pass  before  he  found  his  place 
and  work  in  the  world,  and  the  long  period  of 
wavering  and  uncertainty  is  chargeable  not 
only  to  the  man  but  to  the  environment.  We 
have  already  glanced  at  the  opposing  strains,  of 
minister  and  doctor,  in  his  inheritance;  we  have 
noted  the  broken  and  scattered  instruction  of 
his  boyhood,  clouded  by  loss  of  brother, 
mother,  and  father;  we  have  seen  the  singularly 
unsatisfactory  atmosphere  into  which  he  en 
tered  at  the  university.  We  can  hardly  be  sur 
prised  that  he  should  pass  out  of  the  academic 
halls  full  of  opposing  ardors  and  dissonant 
impulses  and  aimless  purposes. 


Ill 

THE  VOYAGE  'ROUND  THE  HORN 

SILL  spent  part  of  the  summer  and  autumn 
following  his  graduation  in  the  beautiful  old 
town  of  Windsor,  Connecticut,  where  he  was 
born.  A  scrap  from  a  letter  to  a  classmate  indi 
cates  that  he  read  poetry  if  he  did  not  write 
any,  and  that  his  undergraduate  love  for 
Tennyson  still  held. 

"Have  been  noticing  what  different  poets 
have  said  about  the  autumn  leaves,  as  an 
example  of  Tennyson's  infinite  height  above 
them  all.  You  know  how  he  talks:  — 

"'Flying  gold  of  autumn  woodland  — * 
;  "'This  maple  burn  itself  away  — ' 
'"I  laid  a  fiery  finger  on  the  leaves  — '  etc.,  etc. 

"Other  poets,  'brown  and  sere'  -  -  'sere  and 
yellow '  -  —  et  cetera,  no  bettera. 

"Been  reading  (and  enjoying  —  tell  it  not  in 
Gath)  one  John  Milton's  'Paradise  Lost'!  I 
guess  the  judgment  of  generations  is  a  pretty 
sure  thing  after  all. 

"Great  world  as  ever,  is  n't  it?  How  about 
immortality?  Much  taught,  or  at  all,  in  Old 
Testament?  Am  still  wondering  about  that 


THE  VOYAGE  'ROUND  THE  HORN       37 

book.  Look  at  Job  now  —  it  is  amazing  —  one 
or  two  thousand  years  before  our  era." 

In  December  he  and  his  intimate  friend 
Shearer  set  sail  for  California,  'round  the  Horn, 
a  four  months'  voyage  during  which  Sill  kept  a 
journal  as  most  young  men  of  literary  tenden 
cies  have  done  on  their  first  voyages.  Some 
extracts  may  be  saved  from  oblivion  to  indicate 
his  half-formed  tastes  and  his  powers  of  obser 
vation,  but  they  are  best  prefaced  by  a  letter 
written  toward  the  end  of  the  voyage  to  a 
classmate  in  New  England:  - 

PACIFIC  OCEAN,  March  13,  1862. 
It  is  strange  how  quickly  and  completely  all 
idea  of  danger  evaporated.  After  the  first  fort 
night,  I  never  felt  the  slightest  fear  of  ship 
wreck  or  anything  of  that  sort,  any  more  than  I 
should  at  home  of  the  roof's  falling  in.  Some 
times  there  is  a  f earf ulness  —  sometimes  an 
awf  ulness  —  about  the  sea  —  in  the  night,  with 
the  darkness,  and  the  roar  of  the  wind,  and  the 
black  waves  flashing  out  white  fangs  from  their 
deep  jaws,  and  the  swift  motion  (seeming  with 
the  noise  of  the  foam  seething  by,  to  fairly  hiss 
through  the  water),  and  the  ghostly  sails  tower 
ing  up,  the  mast-tips  sweeping  great  arcs 
across  the  flying  rags  of  cloud,  their  motion  and 
great  disproportionate  size  and  height  com 
pared  with  the  ship's  narrow  deck  giving  one 


38  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

such  an  impression  of  vast  instability,  and  the 
utter  desolateness  of  the  position  —  cut  off 
from  all  aid  of  man  among  the  gigantic  ener 
gies  of  blind  force  —  but  it  does  n't  inspire 
what  can  be  called  fear  —  such  as  you  have 
towards  a  pistol  or  a  falling  brick  —  but  a 
supernatural  sort  of  awe  —  half  cowing,  and 
half  rousing  the  tragic  element  in  a  man  to  a 
superhuman  defiance.  .  .  . 

I  enjoyed  life  —  lazy  and  purposeless  as  the 
life  was.  The  only  thing  to  mar  the  enjoyment 
of  it  was  a  restless  idea  that  my  mind  was  losing 
time.  I  thought  with  an  envious  feeling  of  you 
who  have  been  using  your  brains  ever  since  we 
graduated.  A  man  can't  keep  in  mind,  some 
how,  that  he  has  an  eternity  before  him  and 
need  n't  ever  begrudge  any  time  which  is  spent 
in  the  way  of  his  duty. 

In  your  last  letter  you  said  you  hoped  I 
would  write  something,  on  this  voyage.  Well, 
so  did  I  —  but  I  have  n't.  I  could  have,  of 
course,  by  going  at  it  as  a  task  —  but  I  think  a 
person  ought  never  to  write  poetry  unless  he 
wants  to  —  unless  he  feels  impelled  to  tell  some 
thing  he  has  in  him.  If  beautiful  scenes  should 
inspire  thought  or  rouse  deep  feeling,  I  ought 
surely  to  have  experienced  it.  Such  starlight 
nights  I  never  saw  before  —  "  larger  constella 
tions  burning"  —  in  the  course  of  one  night  I 
saw  all  the  stars  of  first  magnitude  (twenty  in 


THE  VOYAGE  'ROUND  THE  HORN   39 

all)  except  one,  and  sparkling  through  such  a 
clear  blue  atmosphere  as  one  does  n't  often  see 
North.  The  dawn,  too,  is  beautiful.  Several 
times  I  have  got  up  before  it  commenced,  and, 
climbing  to  the  highest  yard  on  the  mast,  have 
sat  there  and  watched  the  daybreak.  With  the 
short  twilight  of  the  latitude  the  west  was  all 
night-sky  and  the  stars  bright,  while  the  east 
was  morning,  making  delicious  contrasts  of 
colors. 

The  strangest  life  it  is  —  floating  on  over 
the  desert,  so  utterly  cut  off  from  men  and  all 
men's  doings.  We  don't  care  what  the  world 
does  with  itself.  The  war  never  enters  our 
heads,  except  as  a  recollection  of  a  thing  we 
were  interested  in,  in  the  past.  The  accident  of 
being  on  the  same  planet  with  the  rest  of  man 
kind  is  nothing  —  any  more  than  revolving  in 
the  same  solar  system  gives  you  a  lively  interest 
in  the  social  problems  of  Mars. 

The  jottings  from  the  journal  are  accom 
panied  by  occasional  footnotes  of  ironical  com 
ment  eminently  just  and  calculated  to  disarm 
the  not  too  critical  biographer.  They  were  also 
accompanied  in  the  original  by  marginal 
sketches  in  caricature  of  Sill,  Shearer,  mer 
maids,  fishes,  albatrosses,  et  a/.,  which  unfortu 
nately  are  not  now  available. 


40  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

TUESDAY  EVENING,  24th  Dec.,  1861. 
Here,  it  is  nine  o'clock,  almost  a  dead  calm; 
the  sea  smooth  and  oily,  seeming  to  be  breath 
ing  in  its  sleep  in  long,  slow  swells  which  roll 
the  ship  lazily  from  stem  to  stern,  and  now  and 
then  from  side  to  side.  The  sky  overcast  and 
preparing  for  rain  with  no  promise  of  a  breeze.1 
We  are  prematurely  in  the  Doldrums  which 
have  no  business  to  cage  us  for  several  degrees 
yet.  There  was  a  marvelous  sunset  to-night,  I 
can't  describe  it,  words  perhaps  exist  which 
would  set  it  forth,  but  it  is  far  out  of  my  skill. 
The  most  beautiful  west  I  ever  saw.  I  climbed 
up  the  rigging  and  sat  there  until  the  glory  had 
all  gone.  How  sadly  the  change  comes,  from 
all  the  gorgeous  gold  and  green  and  violet,  the 
pure  olive  and  lustrous  silver,  slowly,  imper 
ceptibly,  into  darkening  green  and  then  mere 
dusky  masses  of  cloud  and  night.  There  it  was 
so  few  moments  ago,  all  light  and  joy  and 
praises,  now,  while  I  sit  in  the  same  posture, 
not  a  limb  changed,  it  is  hopeless,  loveless  dark 
—  "the  set  gray  life,  and  apathetic  end." 

SAT.  MORNING,  Jan.  11. 
Lat.  13.44  S.   Long.  38.35. 

Yesterday  afternoon  I  spent  with  my  mi 
croscope  examining  all  manner  of  queernesses, 

1  It  is  a  noticeable  fact  that  our  young  man  seems  to  dwell  on 
the  weather  as  persistently  as  a  bashful  girl  at  a  party.  As  if  it 
could  be  interesting  to  people  months  afterwards  and  hundreds 


THE  VOYAGE  'ROUND  THE  HORN   41 

fished  up  in  the  bug-net  —  all  sorts  and  varie 
ties  of  "things  forked  and  horned  and  soft," 
beautiful,  curious,  comical.  Verily  man  inhabits 
not  only  two  worlds  —  of  matter  and  spirit  — 
but  three  distinct  material  ones  —  that  re 
vealed  by  the  telescope,  that  by  the  eyes,  and 
that  by  the  microscope,  the  last  not  least  won 
derful  in  its  complexity  of  infinitesimal  organs 
and  brilliancy  of  color.  Last  night  was  a  beau 
tiful  one  1  (how  one  needs  to  use  that  word  here 
at  sea) .  The  moon  nearly  full,  near  the  zenith, 
the  air  in  which  it  swam  of  a  pure  liquid  blue  — 
dark  and  lustrous.  Venus  lower  down,  a  drop 
of  molten  silver,  and  great  bands  and  terraces 
of  cirrus  cloud  slowly  moving  across  the  con 
stellations,  five  bars  of  which,  nearly  overhead, 
were  in  the  likeness  of  a  great  superhuman 
hand  —  such  as  might  have  belonged  to  the 
arm  "clothed  in  white  samite,  mystic,  wonder 
ful  "  —  on  the  third  finger  of  which,  as  it  floated 
up  towards  the  moon,  slipped  the  belt  of  Orion 
like  a  diamond  ring. 

MONDAY,  January  27. 
Lat.  45.27.  Long.  59.20. 

I  wish  I  could  get  into  my  log-book  some 
picture  of  the  beautiful  faces  the  sea  wears, 

of  miles  away.  Such,  however,  is  the  amusing  egotism  of  imma 
ture  travellers. 

1  Our  ingenious  tourist  has  the  real  school-girl  knack  of  ad 
jectives.  The  simple  young  fellow,  we  suppose,  wants  to  have  us 
see  all  the  sights  which  pleased  him,  and  as  our  language  really 


42  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

changing  from  "gay,  or  grave,  or  sweet,  or 
stern,"  as  the  days  bring  us  different  winds  and 
climates.  To-day  it  has  one  of  the  quiet,  smil 
ing  looks  —  one  of  the  many  times  when  it 
seems  more  natural  to  make  the  sea  feminine, 
to  think  and  speak  of  it  as  the  white-armed, 
blue-eyed  Naiad,  than  as  regal  old  hoary- 
bearded  Neptune.  It  is  calm  as  a  lake;  oily- 
smooth  in  some  places,  crinkled  or  lightly  rip 
pled  in  others.  Off  where  the  noonday  sun  is 
reflected,  the  surface  has  a  green  brilliancy,  the 
color  of  a  half-ripe  orange,  and  all  sparkling 
and  crinkling,  as  molten  silver  might  with  a 
crust  of  diamonds.  Before  breakfast  I  climbed 
to  the  to 'gallant  yard  and  sat  astride  of  it;  it 
was  all  beauty  wherever  eye  could  rest,  or  ear 
listen.  We  were  gliding  along  imperceptibly 
unless  you  saw  the  bubbles  pass  astern,  two  or 
three  knots  an  hour,  the  soft  cool  air  right 
astern,  through  belts  of  a  few  hundred  yards' 
breadth  of  alternately  smooth  and  roughened 
water.  When  we  were  passing  through  a 
smooth  one  all  was  perfectly  hushed  near  the 
ship,  and  it  was  pleasant  to  listen  to  the  mur 
mur  of  the  ripples  and  little  waves  washing  to 
and  fro  in  the  rougher  places  farther  from  us,  a 
low,  strange  noise  like  the  sough  of  winds  in 
pine  woods.  I  could  shut  my  eyes  up  aloft  there 

is  lacking  in  synonyms,  let  us  be  charitable  while  he  strums  away 
on  his  one  little  descriptive  string. 


THE  VOYAGE  'ROUND  THE  HORN       43 

and  imagine  myself  in  the  deep  woods  with  the 
wind  far  off  and  near,  making  that  pleasant 
whispering,  minor  music,  and  the  water  plash 
ing  about  the  rudder  like  the  noise  of  a  brook 
heard  near  at  hand. 

I  believe  I  have  never  spoken  of  there  being 
always  a  plashing  and  swishing  and  hissing  and 
dashing  and  rushing  noise  about  the  ship  in 
ordinary  weather;  varying,  of  course,  from 
pleasant  murmurs  to  loud  and  fierce  tones.  It 
is  never  perfectly  still  except  in  dead  calm. 
Waves  little  or  big  are  incessantly  breaking, 
rippling  and  tumbling,  near  and  far,  with  that 
same  indefinable,  vague  intermingling  of  vari 
ous  tones,  which  one  hears  lying  within  sound 
of  the  surf  on  a  sea-beach. 

THURSDAY,  the  7th  Feb. 
Lat.  26.   Long.  103.    9j  morning. 

My  day  began  this  morning  with  the  dawn, 
as  all  days  ought  to  —  not  the  withered  and 
tarnished  thing  which  people  generally  are 
willing  to  accept  for  it,  but  the  real  dawn.  Got 
up  at  eight  bells  (four  o'clock),  stuck  my  head 
out  of  the  window  and  found  it  clear,  the  faint 
est  possible  tinge  of  light  on  the  southeastern 
horizon  already.  Traced  out  the  constellations 
with  map  at  the  binnacle  light,  then  climbed  to 
the  royal-yard  (highest  yard  on  mast)  and 
settled  myself  across  it  with  my  arms  around 


44  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

the  slender  mast.  Some  of  the  old  familiar 
Northern  stars  were  now  visible  again,  Alpha 
Lyrse,  glittering  white  as  of  old,  the  Eagle  and 
the  little  Dolphin,  Arcturus  off  over  the  main 
mast,  and  directly  overhead  the  beautiful 
Scorpion.  Besides,  were  all  the  brightest  of 
Southern  splendors,  the  Cross  and  Centaur 
sinking  in  the  southwest,  and  Jupiter,  hanging 
large  and  white  upon  the  dark  west  like  a  liquid 
pearl.  By  the  time  all  the  stars  had  been  recog 
nized  an  arch  of  faint  light  had  risen  in  the  east. 
Each  time  I  returned  to  it  from  the  stars  it  had 
risen  rapidly  higher  and  brighter.  Suddenly 
from  behind  a  low  cloud  along  the  horizon 
appeared  the  old  moon,  a  mere  crescent  thread 
of  pearl  (for  to-morrow  it  is  new  moon),  more 
slender  than  one  ever  sees  it  in  the  long  twilight 
of  our  latitude.  The  next  time  I  looked  at  the 
east  a  faintly  visible  film  of  soft  cirrus,  unseen 
before,  was  rippled  up  the  clear  sky  in  broad, 
radiating  streaks,  wimpled  across  like  thin 
cream  when  disturbed.  All  along  the  western 
horizon  lay  rounded  cumuli,  some  floating  up 
and  spread  over  at  the  top  like  white  smoke,  as 
from  a  volcano,  risen  in  a  still  air,  others  tower 
ing  like  overhanging  icebergs,  capped  with 
snow,  others,  in  likeness  of  great  countenances 
—  like  Greek  tragic-masks  —  earnest  or  terri 
fied  faces  motionless  under  some  spell  of  horror. 
In  the  east  the  clouds  piled  along  the  horizon 


THE  VOYAGE  'ROUND  THE  HORN   45 

seemed  pressing  forward,  standing  on  tiptoe  to 
peer  over  each  other's  shoulders,  watching  for 
the  expected  sun.  Already  they  are  tipped  and 
edged  with  red  light,  one  or  two  floating  alone 
all  luminous  from  within  apparently  with  scar 
let.  Off  in  the  southwest  rise  Andes  peaks,  their 
tops  roseate  over  the  dark  bars  of  stratus  drawn 
across  their  sides  and  bases,  while  the  "  icebergs  " 
in  the  west  are  become  smouldering  coals  with 
the  red  heat  glowing  through  their  coating  of 
white  ash.  Now  the  cloudy  threshold  of  the 
east  is  burning  gold  —  and  at  last  up  the  sky 
flame  the  broadening  rays,  firing  shaft  upon 
shaft  of  the  clouds  around,  and  burning 
through  the  low  cloud  wall  in  broken  rifts, 
rises  the  dazzling  sun.  The  stars  have  been  fast 
melting  away  into  the  brightening  blue  — 
Alpha  Lyrse,  only  a  few  minutes  before  the 
sun  appeared,  flickered  out,  a  white,  glittering 
point,  then  Alpha  Centauri  was  lost,  and  last  of 
all  Jupiter  can  no  longer  be  found.  It  was  full 
day,  —  the  water  blue  and  sparkling  in  the 
light  breeze,  —  so  I  climbed  to  the  "  truck  "  (the 
round  ball  on  top  of  the  mast),  "shinning  it" 
from  the  yard,  hung  my  hat  upon  it  in  triumph, 
slid  back  to  the  yard  and  standing  upon  it 
horrified  my  chum  (who  had  just  come  on  deck 
down  below  me)  by  waving  my  hat  to  him,  then 
descended.  In  the  evening  and  morning  of  the 
same  night  I  had  seen  all  the  stars  of  first 


46  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

magnitude,  except  one,  viz:  the  Southern  Fish 
—  fourteen  were  visible  at  one  time,  in  the 

evening. 

SUNDAY,  Feb.  23, 
Lat.  32.  Long.  78. 

8^  o'clock,  morning.     I  am  almost    ready 
to  believe  that  on  the  ocean,  at  least,  where 
man's  wickedness  has  had  least  influence,  Na 
ture  keeps  Sabbath:  air  and  water  and  sky  are 
so  bright  and  peaceful.  Last  night,  for  the  first 
time  in  several  weeks,  we  had  a  cloudless  sky, 
except  low  down  about  the  horizon.    Right 
astern  were  the  Cross  and  its  companion  glories, 
scattered  down  the  Milky  Way,  diamonds  and 
rubies  in  mosaic  on  a  pearl-dusted  ground  of 
dark  blue.  Overhead  was  glazing  Sirius,  white- 
hot,  and  south  of  him  the  next  brightest  star 
in  the  heavens,  Canopus.  In  the  west  through 
the  spaces  of  the  sails  sparkled  Orion  and  the 
Bull,  while  the  Pleiades  were  just  going  down 
into  the  cloudy  circle  of  the  horizon.  Round  the 
edge  of  the  mainsail  shone   the  Lesser  Dog, 
and  the  Twins.    In  the  east  hung  the  Sickle, 
and  mid- way  between  it  and  red  Spica  Virginis 
burned  Jupiter,  preternaturally  splendid,  send 
ing  a  track  across  the  water  like  a  moonrise. 
Just  under  the  Cross    a   black   hole   opened 
through  the  stars  out  into  the  fathomless  dark 
ness  —  the  larger  "Coal  Sack"    -nearly  cir 
cular,  six  degrees  in  diameter.   The  other  side 


THE  VOYAGE  'ROUND  THE  HORN   47 

of  the  South  Pole  Stars  lay  the  Megellanic 
Clouds  —  like  bits  of  hazy  cirrus  a  little  larger 
than  Orion's  Square. 

TUESDAY,  Feb.  25. 
Lat.  28,  S.  Long.  101. 

I  have  been  struck  with  the  resemblance 
between  our  ship  and  society.  We  are  a  per 
fect  little  microcosm,  one  little  crystal  cut  out 
of  the  great  crystal,  perfect  in  shape  and  an 
exact  counterpart  of  the  whole  from  which  it 
was  taken.  Forward,  in  the  crowded,  uncleanly 
forecastle,  separated  from  all  direct  association 
with  the  occupants  of  the  cabin,  aft,  are  the 
common  sailors  (the  laboring  masses,  ignorant 
and  brawny).  Next  amidships  is  the  galley 
with  its  cook  and  steward,  the  providers  (far 
mers  and  merchants).  Next,  inhabiting  the 
forward  end  of  the  house,  the  three  mates,  giv 
ing  the  orders  of  the  Captain  to  the  men  (the 
professional  men,  teaching  and  seeing  to  the 
execution  of  the  principles  of  the  few  leading 
minds,  among  the  masses).  Then  in  the  cabin 
two  sorts  of  passengers  —  equally  unconnected 
with  the  working  or  guidance  of  the  ship  from 
day  to  day  —  the  rich  youngster,  travelling  to 
kill  time  (the  gentry  in  ennui  and  kid  gloves), 
and  the  scientific  person,  microscope  or  tele 
scope  in  hand,  regardless  of  the  wind  so  it 
doesn't  cloud  his  stars  (the  Galileo, etc., careless 
of  politics  and  working  for  the  Future).  Last 


48  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

of  all,  with  the  Wheel  for  will  and  the  Compass 
for  conscience,  and  the  Chart  for  Bible,  stands 
the  Captain  (the  great  thinker,  here  and  there 
standing  alone,  comprehending  and  directing 
the  whole  mechanism  of  society). 

Afternoon  —  One  o'clock. 

I  have  been  lounging  up  in  the  top  this  fore 
noon  (a  very  comfortable,  secluded  roost) .  The 
ocean  fairly  persecutes  me  with  its  clamorous 
demands  to  be  expressed  in  words.  I  become  an 
"Ancient  Mariner,"  whose  "Wedding  Guest" 
is  my  journal,  having  no  peace  till  I  get  what  is 
before  me  expressed.  What  a  difference  there 
is  between  the  writing  of  a  man  who  is  trying 
to  say  handsome  things,  and  that  of  him  who 
is  impelled  by  an  instinctive  desire  to  "get  it 
expressed"  as  I  have  called  it.  Yet  the  latter 
gets  all  the  discredit  of  the  former  with  the  mass 
of  readers.  Maury  and  Ruskin  are  pretty  good 
examples.  It  is  perfectly  evident  (in  Phys. 
Geog.  Sea)  that  the  flowery  Lieutenant  is  only 
describing  Nature  because  it  ornaments  his 
book;  instead  of  trying  to  paint  accurately 
things  as  they  are,  he  is  stringing  pretty  words 
together.  Ruskin,  on  the  contrary,  is  evidently 
struggling  with  the  scene  before  him,  to  im 
prison  the  beauty  in  words  —  not  struggling 
either,  for  that  conveys  an  idea  of  some  dubi 
ousness,  in  the  attempt,  as  to  its  success  —  say 
rather  is  earnestly  and  swiftly  painting  it  there 


THE   VOYAGE   'ROUND   THE  HORN       49 

for  you,  unable  in  his  enthusiasm  to  pause  or 
rest  till  it  is  done,  and  you  see  it  all  as  he  saw 
it.  For  instance,  on  page  129,  Maury  says  of  the 
Southern  sky,  "Canopus  and  Sirius,  etc.,  etc. 
are  high  up  in  their  course;  they  look  down  with 
great  splendor,  smiling  peacefully  as  they  pre 
cede  the  Southern  Cross  on  its  western  way." 
Now  I  consider  it  impossible  that  any  sane  man 
should  have  had  those  two  incongruous  im 
pressions  upon  his  mind  from  the  same  stars  at 
any  one  time  —  consequently  he  must  be 
shamming  one  of  them.  Undoubtedly  the  truth 
is,  he  thinks  the  "smiling"  idea  (suggested  by 
some  rhymer)  will  sound  rather  well,  and  so 
he  says  it.1  I  was  going  to  speak,  when  my 
critical  streak  came  over  me,  about  the  sound 
of  the  water  as  I  leaned  back  in  the  "  top  "  and 
listened  to  it.  It  seemed  compounded  of  the 
whispers  of  pine  woods,  the  washing  of  small 
waves  against  the  bow  of  a  rowboat,  the  hollow 
murmur  of  a  shell,  the  babbling  of  a  little  hid 
den  brook  in  the  woods,  and  the  wind  brushing 
and  bending  the  trees.  With  a  fresher  breeze 
it  is  the  noise  of  Big  Falls  heard  from  halfway 
down  the  hill.  Then  there  is  the  low  fluttering 
sound  which  the  wind  makes  against  the  ear, 

1  Our  pretentious  young  wanderer  is  really  going  it  rather 
strong.  "That's  the  bungling  way  Maury  does,  you  know,  now 
see  how  nice  /  can  do  it!"  Let  us  hope,  however,  that  he  is  not 
such  a  humbug  as  he  seems  —  perhaps  the  young  fellow  is  really 
honest  in  what  he  says,  after  all. 


50  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

always  mingled  with  rest.  Nature  tries  hard 
to  satisfy  us  with  her  music  —  like  some  In 
dian  woman,  bending  over  the  little  white  cap 
tive  which  the  warriors  have  stolen  and  brought 
to  her,  trying  to  make  it  understand  her  simple 
lullabies.  But  it  is  in  vain  —  the  sounds  are 
all  musical,  yet  there  is  no  human  meaning  in 
it.  We  turn  away  from  the  wind  and  the  wave, 
longing  for  some  old  song  that  has  linked  the 
voices  of  a  friendly  circle,  some  tune  that  has 
borne  a  meaning  to  us  separate  from  the  mere 
notes,  as  the  expression  of  human  fellowship 
and  affection.  Yet,  if  it  had  been  safe,  I  could 
have  gone  to  sleep  very  easily  there  in  the  top, 
with  my  head  resting  on  my  arm,  lulled  by  the 
waves,  looking  off  through  half-shut  eyes  on 
blue  water,  flecked  with  white  foam,  under 
blue  sky,  islanded  with  fleecy,  pearl-colored 
cloud,  and  with  the  song  of  the  Lotus-eaters 
singing  itself  in  my  head.  It  is  the  most  delight 
ful  sailing,  this,  that  I  can  imagine.  Sails  all 
set,  "  wings "  and  all,  just  kept  full  and  mo 
tionless  all  the  time,  wind  hardly  perceptible, 
no  rollers,  beautiful  sky  and  water,  soft,  warm 
air,  and  going  on,  night  and  day,  about  six 
miles  an  hour,  with  only  enough  gentle  rocking, 
slowly,  now  and  then,  to  seem  the  embodiment 
of  idleness  and  calm. 


IV 

CALIFORNIA 

THE  five  years  that  Sill  now  spent  in  Cali 
fornia  were  true  Wander jahre,  for  though  when 
the  episode  closed  he  was  still  uncertain  of  his 
vocation,  the  range  of  choice  had  narrowed  to 
teaching,  or  the  alternative,  preaching.  The 
years  were  filled  with  restless  activity.  For  a 
time  he  worked  in  the  post-office  at  Sacramento; 
some  months  he  spent  on  a  ranch;  some  months 
at  studying  law;  for  a  time  he  looked  about  for 
a  school  to  teach;  perhaps  the  longest  interval 
was  given  to  "clerking"  in  a  bank  at  Folsom. 
None  of  these  occupations  satisfied  his  mind  or 
allayed  his  discontent.  The  strangeness  of  the 
place  contributed  to  his  restless  feeling:  at  first 
he  seems  to  have  suffered  from  something  like 
homesickness,  and  he  evidently  disliked  Cali 
fornia,  or  thought  he  did,  very  cordially.  The 
mood  passed  and  the  time  came  when  he  could 
sing  her  praises  as  fervently  as  any  na.tive, 
though  one  may  permit  one's  self  the  mental 
reservation  that  the  praise  may  have  been  for 
the  outward  California  and  that  the  Puritan 
never  became  spiritually  acclimated. 


52  EDWARD  ROWLAND    SILL 

"Well,"  he  writes,  in  March,  1862,  "as  I 
said,  we  got  in  last  week  —  were  disappointed 
in  California's  first  appearance.  Swore  an  oath, 
at  the  expiration  of  the  first  day's  travelling 
around  San  Francisco,  not  to  make  'this  people 
our  people  nor  their  God  our  God '  —  for  their 
God  is  money.  Yet  I  have  liked  it  better  every 
day,  so  far  —  but  could  not  live  here  long  — 
no  culture,  no  thought,  no  art.  My  town  here 
(as  I  call  it  in  distinction  from  S.'s  town,  San 
F.)  is  at  present  a  dismantled  wreck,  by  the 
floods  of  the  winter  —  people  still  go  about  in 
boats  instead  of  buggies.  It's  a  sort  of  muddy 
Venice,  with  little  wooden  houses  instead  of  the 
'Palace  and  the  Prison  on  either  hand.' ' 

Six  months  later  he  was  still  "very  tired  of 
California  and  indeed  sick  at  heart  of  such  peo 
ple  and  such  circumstances  as  surround  me 
here,"  which  he  refers  to  again  the  same  month 
as  "out  here  in  heathendom."  Nor  had  he 
softened  toward  the  golden  West  when  the  year 
had  rolled  round.  "I  refuse  to  consider  myself 
anything  but  a  pilgrim  and  a  stranger.  I  don't 
like  the  country  any  better  than  when  I  wrote 
before,  but  I  presume  I  shall  think  it  best  to 
stay  here  till  next  spring  when  I  shall  hope  to 
depart.  .  .  .  For  to  my  taste  the  ups  and  downs, 
summer  and  winter,  snow  and  flowers,  rain  and 
then  sunshine  of  the  weather  East,  are  much 


CALIFORNIA  53 

pleasanter  than  the  monotonous  fairness  of  the 
skies  here." 

"To  tell  the  truth,"  he  writes  to  a  classmate 
in  the  spring  of  1863,  "I  have  had  the  Devil's 
own  time  out  here  in  some  respects.  I  don't 
have  any  feeling  of  having  been  treated  un 
justly,  or  that  my  fate  has  been  hard  at  all,  for 
it  has  n't.  I  have  the  common  sense,  I  hope,  to 
perceive  that  the  trouble  has  been  with  me,  not 
with  circumstances."  It  is  only  a  youthful 
growl,  after  all,  and  explained  in  part  by  a 
line  from  another  letter,  -  "Half  the  weari 
ness  of  my  life  here  consists  of  its  terrible  iso 
lation." 

To  California's  physical  charm  he  could 
never,  of  course,  be  indifferent.  It  grew  upon 
him.  After  two  years  in  Sacramento  he  was 
writing  in  this  strain:  - 

"  California  (so  far  as  that  means  the  natural 
and  not  the  human  aspect  thereof)  is  inexpres 
sibly  beautiful  just  now.  The  trees  are  all  just 
*qut,'  in  their  spring  vesture  —  the  fields  full 
of  flowers — nobody  has  any  right  to  talk  about 
fields  carpeted  with  flowers  till  he  has  seen 
them  here  (or,  I  suppose,  in  the  still  more  trop 
ical  climates).  Great  gorgeous  fellows,  you 
know  —  like  all  the  conservatories  you  ever 
saw  broken  loose  and  romping  over  the  wild 
plains  here,  exulting  and  irrepressible.  And  not 
only  these  superb  sorts,  but  come  to  stoop  down 


54  EDWAKD  ROWLAND  SILL 

and  look  closer  you  find  multitudes  of  the  least 
wee  blossoms — little  stars,  scarcely  bigger  than 
a  pin's  head,  blue,  and  pure  white,  perfect  as 
gems  —  only  so  for  a  couple  of  months  or  three 
months  —  then  the  parching,  rainless  summer 
bakes  the  ground,  and  browns  the  dry  grass  to 
a  monotonous  tint  that  makes  one  hot  and 
thirsty  even  to  look  at  it. 

"And  as  with  the  vegetation,  so  with  the 
children  born  here.  .  .  .  Little  human  blossoms, 
such  as  one  rarely  sees  in  the  cold,  Atlantic 
States.  Mites  of  girls,  with  complexions  like 
porcelain  which  you  look  at  the  light  through 
—  and  soft,  beautiful  eyes.  And  little  boys, 
fair  and  delicate  as  girls  —  bright  and  gentle, 
but  so  fragile-looking  that  it  seems  as  though 
to  speak  suddenly  to  them  would  shock  them 
out  of  existence.  They  come  around  to  my 
post-office  windows,  toddling  bits  of  creatures, 
asking  for  letters  as  sedate  and  grave  as  old 
men  —  and  trotting  off  with  them  in  their  little 
hands,  the  letter  almost  as  big  as  the  sprite  that 
carries  it.  Whereat  the  clerk,  Sill,  pokes  his 
kead  contemptuously  through  the  window,  and 
marvels  at  the  climate  which  produces  such 
things." 

The  California  years  were  Wander -jahre,  no 
less  of  the  mind  than  of  the  body,  and  of  the 
spirit  perhaps  even  more  than  the  mind  — 
years  of  all  manner  of  seeking,  questioning, 


CALIFORNIA  55 

trying  of  experiments  and  searchings  of  the 
soul.  Every  profession  and  some  trades  he 
chose  and  discarded,  only  to  leave  the  matter 
unsettled  at  the  end.  His  first  leadings,  cu 
riously  and  naturally  enough,  were  toward 
teaching.  While  he  was  still  on  shipboard  he 
wrote  his  friend  Dexter,  "If  possible  I  shall  col 
lect  some  children  who  don't  know  anything 
and  follow  your  pedagogal  footsteps."  And 
shortly  after  reaching  Sacramento,  he  wrote, 
"No  place  here  for  schoolteachers.  Unless  one 
could  teach  them  how  to  make  money  fast. 
Nobody  would  send  their  children."  Before 
the  summer  was  over  he  was  dipping  into 
Blackstone:  — 

July,  1862. 

As  for  me,  I  have  come  to  it  finally,  like 
all  the  rest  of  'em  —  I  am  to  study  law.  And 
what  a  lawyer  I  shall  make !  I  suppose  I  am  one 
of  the  first,  though,  who  ever  determined  on 
that  profession  for  the  benefit  it  would  be  to 
himself  spiritually.  Yet  that's  my  crotchet. 
We  are  (some  people  don't  seem  to  be  —  but 
you  and  I  and  a  few  of  us  certainly  are)  planted 
down  in  the  midst  of  a  great  snarl  and  tangle  of 
interrogation  points.  We  want  to  find  —  we 
must  find  —  some  fixed  truth.  Either  we  are 
wrong  and  the  vast  majority  of  thinkers  right, 
or  they  are  wrong  and  we  right  —  and  that, 


56  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

too,  not  on  one  point,  but  a  thousand  —  points 
of  the  vastest  scope  and  importance.  As  Kings- 
ley  puts  it,  we  are  set  down  before  that  greatest 
world-problem  —  "  Given  self,  to  find  God." 
So,  considering  that  for  such  tasks  the  mind 
needs  every  preparation,  skill  and  practice  in 
drawing  close  distinctions,  subtileness  in  de 
tecting  sophistry,  strength  and  patience  to 
work  at  a  train  of  thought  continuously  long 
enough  to  follow  its  consequences  clear  out,  and 
some  systematized  memory  (if  for  nothing  but 
holding  and  duly  furnishing  your  own  thoughts 
when  needed)  —  I  say,  seeing  no  better  —  or 
rather,  no  other  —  way  to  gain  these  but  by 
entering  the  law,  thitherwards  I  have  set  my 
face.  ...  I  have  sifted  it  all  down  to  this  con 
clusion  —  that  in  teaching,  or  in  literature,  or 
even  in  following  up  some  chosen  science  (much 
less  some  chosen  art,  as  poetry),  the  mind  would 
not  get  fitted  for  that  serious  work  which  is 
before  it.  In  them,  it  might  become  cultivated, 
stored  with  knowledge,  in  some  sense  developed 
—  but  not  disciplined.  Now  just  take  that 
question  alone  —  Is  Christianity  true?  What 
impudence  it  would  be  in  us  to  consider  that 
settled  in  the  negative,  until  we  felt  that  our 
intellects  were  as  strong,  as  capable  of  close, 
protracted  reasoning,  as  little  liable  to  be  misled 
by  sophistry,  as  all  those  greatest  men  who 
have  time  after  time  settled  it  for  themselves 


CALIFORNIA  67 

in  the  affirmative.  I  for  my  part  can  see  no 
way  in  which  I  can  at  the  same  time  earn  a 
living,  and  get  the  active  powers  of  my  mind 
thoroughly  disciplined,  except  by  studying 
law.  .  .  . 

The  law  loosened  its  hold.  In  November  he 
writes :  — 

"  September  and  October  I  spent  for  the  most 
part  on  a  ranch,  as  they  call  their  farms  out 
here.  It  was  a  large  stock  ranch,  over  west  of 
here  some  fifty  miles  in  the  Coast  Range  Moun 
tains.  .  .  .  There  are  about  150  horses  and  400 
or  500  cattle  running  wild  over  a  tract  of  some 
ten  miles  long  and  two  or  three  wide  —  en 
tirely  unfenced,  the  only  limit  to  their  grazing 
being  the  necessity  of  going  to  a  little  creek  for 
water  and  the  inaccessible  steeps  and  ravines 
of  the  surrounding  hills. 

"My  principal  employment  was  taking  care 
of  horses  and  riding  horseback  after  the  wild 
cattle,  from  dawn  to  bedtime.  It  was  fatiguing 
work  at  first,  but  I  got  so  that  I  rode  my  fifty 
miles  between  breakfast  and  supper  without 
difficulty." 

And  before  the  end  of  the  month,  —  "I  have 
been  trying  to  teach  school  out  here,  but  not 
yet  have  succeeded  in  finding  a  situation." 

By  [the  next  summer  he  had  shut  the  law- 
books  for  good:  —  i 


5S  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

SACRAMENTO,  CAL.,  Aug.  6,  1863. 
—  Vocation.  That  is  still  the  great  vexa 
tion  with  us.  What  was  I  born  to  do?  Two 
little  goblins  [a  jocular  allusion  to  himself  and 
Shearer]  running  distractedly  up  and  down, 
wringing  their  hands,  with  "What  was  I  made 
for?"  —  till  big  Death  comes  out  on  them  with 
a  great  laughing,  "Ho!  ho!  ho!  ho!  To  die!" 
and  sweeps  them  out  of  the  way.  I'll  tell  you 
first  about  myself.  ...  I  am  not  going  to  study 
law.  I  am  getting  slowly  proficient  in  short 
hand,  as  a  trade  to  rely  on,  and  earning  what 
I  can  as  a  post-office  clerk.  For  the  present 
I  shall  stay  in  P.  O.  All  I  ask  is,  to  be  sup 
ported,  with  a  little  leisure  for  study.  The 
more,  the  better.  And  with  a  hope  of  laying 
up  such  an  amount  from  year  to  year  as  shall 
make  the  leisure  grow  longer,  and  the  neces 
sity  for  labor  (mechanical)  less  imperious,  how 
ever  slowly,  as  I  grow  older.  My  constitution 
and  frame  forbid  me  to  suppose  that  I  shall 
live  many  years,  so  I  am  the  less  exercised  in 
mind  about  hopes,  plans,  or  fears,  for  any  dis 
tant  future.  .  .  . 

It  is  fortunately  not  necessary  to  take  Sill, 
ceiat  %%,  very  seriously  on  the  subject  of  his 
health;  on  that  topic  he  was  for  a  short  time 
rather  imaginative.  The  next  phase  of  the 
"vocation"  problem  may  nevertheless  have 


CALIFORNIA  59 

been  affected  by  this  attack  of  interest  in  his 
health.  In  February,  1864,  he  writes:  "I  am 
trying  to  study  medicine  (you  remember  sug 
gesting  it  to  me  once)  and  my  only  familiar 
acquaintance  made  here  is  a  doctor  who  gives 
me  the  use  of  his  books,  office,  and  experience 
for  the  few  hours  which  I  can  save  from  my 
day's  work.  I  can  lay  a  few  of  the  foundation 
stones  here  to  be  built  upon  (next  year  when 
I  come  East)  in  the  lecture  and  dissecting 


room." 


This  phase  while  it  lasted  was  acute.  "Next 
spring,  1865,"  he  writes  again,  "I  mean  to 
come  back  with  sound  health,  large  pectoral 
muscles,  a  little  elementary  knowledge  of  medi 
cine,  and  about  $500  in  jolly  greenbacks.  .  .  ." 
But  there  were  other  turns  of  Fortune's  wheel. 
A  month  later  he  writes  of  a  change  which 
apparently  put  an  end  to  the  study  of  medicine. 

Mck,  '64. 

Next  month  I  am  going  to  "move"  —shall 
quit  the  post-office,  and  go  up  to  a  little  town 
some  twenty  miles  north  of  Sacramento  — 
Folsom  (Foolsom  —  in  the  barbarous  dialect 
of  the  natives  here  —  I  don't  know  but  the 
name  is  a  fearful  augury  of  my  wisdom  in  going 
there) .  Goes  I  there  into  a  bank  —  changing 
my  delightful  employment  of  peddling  postage 
stamps  (stomps  —  they  call  'em  here)  for  that 


60  EDWARD  ROWIAND  SILL 

of  buying  gold  dust  from  Mexicans,  Digger 
Indians,  and  Chinamen,  who  are  all  great  at 
the  "  surface-mining  "  in  that  vicinity. 

The  year  which  he  now  spent  at  Folsom  was 
attended  with  somewhat  less  discomfort  and 
discontent  than  the  preceding  period.  He  had 
the  good  fortune  to  find  as  chief  Mr.  C.  T.  H. 
Palmer,  himself  a  graduate  of  Yale  and  a  lover 
—  even  a  practitioner  in  a  modest  fashion — of 
literature,  with  whom  Sill  established  a  friend 
ship  that  lasted  the  rest  of  his  life.  Fragmen 
tary  notes  to  classmates  give  the  setting:  — 

FOLSOM,  May  23,  1864. 

I  am  established  here.  It  is  a  little,  insignifi 
cant  town,  but  one  very  pleasant  household,  in 
which  I  am  fortunate  enough  to  be.  It  is  one  of 
these  little  scooped-out  holes  among  the  foot 
hills  (the  prefaces  to  the  Sierras),  with  fever 
and  ague  rampant,  and  hotter  than  any  hot 
road  in  Litchfield  County.  I  am  learning  to 
keep  bank  books,  which  I  hate,  and  manage  an 
express  agency,  which  I  don't  like,  and  to  buy 
gold  dust,  assay  dust  for  gold,  which  isn't 
quite  so  bad,  and  to  be  decently  genial  and 
human,  which  is  excellent  for  me. 

FOLSOM,  CAL.,  June  15,  1864. 
The  beauty  of  my  position  now  is  that  I  am 
among  a  very  few  very  fine  people,  i.e.,  about 


CALIFORNIA  61 

three  or  four.  We  constituting  an  oasis  in  the 
usual  horrid  description  of  desert  made  up  of 
"Pike's,  fools,  fools,  fools,  and  other  fools." 
Business,  as  you  know,  I  do  not  mightily  enjoy. 
And  here  I  am,  confined  to  the  office  from  6 J 
mornings  to  ditto  ditto  at  night.  The  evening 
only,  being  hallowed  and  glorified  by  a  piano, 
a  good  little  library,  and  the  conversation  of 
people  who  et  illi  in  Arcadia  —  i.e.,  have  been 
to  Yale  (the  caput  familias  at  least  has)  or 
caught  its  spirit  hereditarily.  My  chief,  C.  T. 
H.  Palmer,  supported  himself  through  Yale 
(Class  '47)  (at  least  the  spreeing  part  of  his 
support,  quod  maximum)  by  writing  for  Mags, 
etc.,  and  to  this  day  is  a  Poick.  His  wife  is  a 
granddaughter  of  Prex.  Day's  and  her  brother 
is  a  worthy  scion  of  the  stock. 

My  little  town  here  is  an  oven,  cheerfully 
planted  with  "  shakes  "  and  other  bilious  fevers. 
The  Chinese  portion  of  the  population  form  its 
most  industrious  and  respectable  class,  and 
employ  themselves  in  mining  and  looking  gen 
erally  absurd  and  Mongolian  in  their  persistent 
Chinese  rig  (which  I  adopt  so  far  as  shoes  are 
concerned  to  scuff  around  in,  indoors).  The 
American  element  loafs  around  whiskey  shops, 
burns  its  vitals  out  with  hellish  brandy,  until 
fever  and  shakes  settle  them  quietly  into  the 
graveyard.  Of  course  there  are  a  few  respect 
able,  good,  vulgar  people,  who  keep  up  a  Sun- 


62  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

day  School,  make  a  sparse  gathering  of  audi 
ence  around  the  empty  church  Sundays,  and 
try  to  build  up  a  new  New  England  out  here, 
as  eventually  will  be  succeeded  in,  all  over 
California. 

There  is  one  thing  of  my  [circumstances 
here  which  you  will  rejoice  mecum  at  —  I  am 
no  longer  wholly  divorced  from  music.  I  play 
the  little  hewgag  in  the  church  and  get  bites 
and  sips  at  other  music  from  the  piano.  I  sup 
pose  you  have  never  known  so  complete  a 
starvation  from  music  as  I  have  endured  the 
last  two  years  until  now.  Next  to  losing  all 
love,  it  seems  to  me  the  greatest  privation  man 
is  capable  of  suffering. 

The  change  of  place  and  of  occupation  gave  a 
new  direction  to  Sill's  thoughts.  The  year  1864 
was  a  time  of  emotional  and  spiritual  unrest 
more  acute  than  he  had  known  before. 

"My  dear  friend,"  he  writes  to  a  classmate, 
in  March  of  that  year,  "...  your  letter  pulled 
upon  my  very  inwards,  and  I  want  to  sort  of  ex 
plain  to  you  why  I  do  not  answer  it  by  packing 
my  trunk  with  my  three  least  ragged  shirts  and 
my  Tennyson,  and  getting  into  a  mailbag  myself 
and  coming  on.  I  do  really  believe  I  catch  my 
self  heartily  wishing  I  was  installed  in  that  asst. 
librarianship,  and  chumming  tecum  in  fair  old 
New  Haven.  Yet  to  go  on  there  immediately 


CALIFORNIA  63 

would  be  in  some  sense  a  cowardly  backing  out. 
It  would  be  facing  the  world  and  then  running 
away;  in  taking  up  arms  against  a  sea  of 
trouble,  and  having  them  beautifully  broken 
over  my  head.  If  I  were  a  scholar,  if  I  had  been 
a  faithful  student  in  college  instead  of  a  hair- 
brained  ass,  I  should  desire  no  greater  fortune 
than  to  be,  as  you  are  (I  rejoice  to  learn  - 
gratulor  tibi  —  consider  yourself  gripped),  con 
nected  with  Yale.  It  has  been  mainly  my  sense 
of  incapacity  that  has  prevented  my  continuing 
in  my  first  plan  of  teaching  —  which  I  intended 
to  have  followed  till  it  led  me  to  some  such 
path. 

"As  it  is,  I  have  taken  to  clerkships,  and 
shall  depend  on  such  husks,  to  support  me  till  I 
can  learn  (if  ever)  to  be  in  some  higher  capacity 
useful.  Yet  I  do  not  now  intend  to  stay  here 
longer  than  one  more  year.  It  is  as  you  say  a 
gross,  deadening  place.  I  abominate  it,  from 
first  to  last.  Next  spring,  1865,  Sex  [Shearer] 
and  I  mean  to  come  home.  What  to  do  there  I 
can  form  no  guess.  Not  to  starve  I  am  sure, 
and  not  become  pedlars  I  hope.  You  say  you 
'  don't  know  how  high  my  ambition  is '  —  in  my 
present  circumstances  and  mood,  and  beliefs, 
it  sounded  like  a  sort  of  sarcasm.  If  'Brutus 
says'  I  'was  ambitious,'  I  suppose  I  must  admit 
it.  I  believe  I  thought  more  highly  of  myself 
than  I  ought  to  think,  in  college,  even  in  those 


64  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

last,  self-questioning  days.  But  I  believe  I 
have  got  out  from  under  that  egotistical  night 
mare,  never,  I  hope,  to  be  ridden  with  it  again. 
I  only  ask  of  the  Fates  now,  to  give  me  knowl 
edge  and  to  make  me  be,  in  some  way,  really 
useful " 

And  in  June:  "No  time  to  write  now  —  I'm 
standing  at  my  desk,  with  the  appurtenances  of 
business  hanging  around  me,  like  the  shackles 
on  a  demd  slave,  the  pen  only  caught  from  be 
hind  its  accustomed  nook,  the  ear,  for  a  mere 
parenthesis  of  talk  with  you.  I  think  if  I  could 
get  away  from  counters  and  desks,  into  the 
woods  somewhere,  after  my  last  three  years' 
experience,  I  would  be  glad  to  do  it  —  I  wonder 
if  somewhere  in  Maine  there  is  not  a  cabin,  de 
serted  of  its  last  hermit,  under  some  big  trees, 
with  a  cliff  hanging  over  it,  and  a  stream  to 
catch  one's  daily  meat  out  of  —  if  so,  it  was 
built  for  me." 

In  August  he  was  still  strenuous  —  and  still 
groping  —  but  turning  now  toward  theology ; 
for  matters  of  faith  had  laid  hold  of  him  — 
matters  which  were  to  engage  his  attention  for 
the  next  three  years :  — 

"I  am  working  very  hard  just'  now  —  at 
what  (I  never  can  shake  off  the  feeling  —  the 
conviction)  is  unprofitable  labor  —  mere  busi 
ness. 

"How  much  weariness,  etc.,  one  can  stand, 


CALIFORNIA  65 

though,  when  it  is  known  to  be  for  a  limited 
time.  .  .  .  Have  n't  you  often  been  newly  star 
tled  at  the  sudden  realization  of  how  much 
man  owes  to  Hope? 

"My  great  comfort  is  that  man  can't  take 
his  learning  or  his  culture  out  of  this  life  with 
him  —  Death  pushes  back  everything  from  the 
gate  except  the  naked  soul.  —  Hence  it  don't 
much  matter  that  one  can't  study,  and  know 
this  or  that. 

" .  .  .  I  've  been  reading  theology  lately.  - 
You  spoke  of  the  legion  of  things  which  claim 
our  attention  —  verily,  verily.  But  moral 
philosophy  stands  first  —  then  metaphysics  - 
then  down,  to  medicine,  literature,  sociology, 
fca&ology,  history,  etc.  —  I  keep  a  little  foun 
tain  babbling  and  plashing  in  my  brain,  by 
reading,  nearly  every  day,  a  word  of  Tenny 
son  or  Browning  (Mrs.  I  mean)  or  Ruskin  or 
Bible  or  somebody  —  I  would  like  to  take  your 
arm  and  start  on  a  trip  through  moral  phil 
osophy,  by  evenings.  .  .  . 

"  I  want  to  learn  the  organ  when  I  come  East. 
What  will  it  cost  me,  besides  time?  It  is  in  me 
if  I  do  not  get  too  old  before  it  can  come  out." 

It  was  during  his  residence  at  Folsom  in  '64 
and  '65  that  the  love  affair  which  caused  some 
of  his  friends  anxiety  waxed  and  waned.  There 
is  no  doubt  that  Sill  was  sincere  and  that  he  be- 


66  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

lieved  himself  to  be  seriously  in  love,  but  it  may 
be  doubted  whether  it  was  not  a  "false  dawn," 
lighted  by  sympathy  and  intensified  by  his 
loneliness.  The  first  allusion  to  his  state  of 
mind  occurs  in  a  letter  to  a  classmate  in  New 
Haven:  — 

"My  boy,  have  you,  of  late,  had  much 
thought  about  the  domestic  question  (domus,  a 
home)  ?  —  I  know  you  have,  more  or  less,  pon 
dered  it.  Have  you  in  your  Sittings  happened 
upon  any  touches  or  hints  of  it,  so  as  to  bring  it 
up  vividly,  as  a  matter  of  contrast?  —  That 
have  I  —  and  the  chief  end  of  man  seems  to  lie 
in  there  somewhere.  The  question  is,  shall  a 
man  balk  —  shall  he  refuse  to  be  coddled,  and 
pull  back,  and  snap  at  the  good  angels,  and  say 
he  won't  have  anything  except  bare  life  unless 
they'll  explain  it  all  to  us,  in  which  we  have 
the  sour  satisfaction  of  not  being  fooled  and 
amused.  Or  shall  he  enter  the  game  cheerfully 
-  content,  if  it's  blindman's  buff,  to  be  blind 
fold  —  take  his  share  of  the  burdens  and  bless 
ings  —  have  wife  and  love  —  praise  God 
gratefully  for  sunshine  and  trustfully  for 
storms  —  and  die  with  '  thy  will  be  done ! '  .  .  . 
Do  you  read  Spencer  and  Renan?  —  I  sort  o' 
shrink  from  these  loud  fellows,  who  claim  to 
tell  it  all.  Yet  I  presume  it's  our  duty  to  hear 
what  they  say.  Have  n't  yet.  I  feel  a  prefer 
ence  in  me  to  look  over  what  little  general  his- 


CALIFORNIA  67 

tory  I  have  (in  mind)  and  blink  a  little  at  the 
old  stars  and  think  it  over  for  myself  —  don't 
you? 

"Sometimes,  after  some  peculiar  blessing 
from  the  good  thought  angels,  after  some  soli 
tary  walk  at  night,  I  seem  to  get  calmer  and 
better  views,  and  to  feel  these  fellows  to  be  all 
flippant  and  inadequate.  ..." 

To  one  person  only  did  Sill  write  at  any 
length  of  the  love  passage,  and  these  letters 
contain  the  entire  conjugation,  amo,  amabo, 
amavi. 

FOLSOM,  CAL.,  March  20,  1865. 

To-morrow  comes  a  steamer  mail  and  I 
hope  a  letter  from  you.  But  to-morrow  also 
goes  a  steamer  mail  and  I  want  to  get  a  letter 
off,  so  I  can't  wait.  I've  got  a  thing  to  ask  ad 
vice  about,  so  to  business  fustly.  Here  is  a  girl 
twenty  years  old,  with  good  brains,  and  uncon 
querable  will,  who  is  bent  on  finishing  (that  is, 
getting,  to  our  classic  understanding)  her  educa 
tion.  She  is  teaching  school  and  saving  up  her 
little  earnings  to  go  to  Normal  School  at  San 
Francisco  after  her  present  term's  engagement 
is  out.  Of  course  you  don't  need  to  be  told  that 
any  school  in  San  Fran  —  is  a  humbug  —  a 
bilk  —  She  has  got  to  go  East,  now,  where 
shall  she  go?  I'm  slightly  inclined  to  Mount 
Holyoke.  Knowest  aught  of  that  institution? 


68  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

And  what  is  it  about  some  big  female  college  or 
other  which  Dr.  Cox  has  somewhere  in  New 
York  State?  I  thought  of  Holyoke  because  I 
know  it  is  not  costly,  and  the  girl  has  only  a 
little  —  six  or  seven  hundred  dollars,  perhaps 

—  to  devote  to  it.  Give  to  me  your  opinion  as 
to  where  that  little  could  be  most  advantage 
ously  spent  by  a  girl  who  does  n't  want  French 
or  piano  or  painting  or  elegancies,  so  much  as 
solid  "male"  education  —  such  as  we  wanted, 
and   want.    Ask  anybody  you  know  who  is 
"up"  on  these  matters,  and  please  send  me 
immediately  your  opinion.   Having  said  thus 
much,  from  a  business  point  of  view,  it  will  per 
haps  be  unnecessary  to  add  that  I  love  said 
girl  and  that  she  loves  me,  —  which  renders 
my  little  question  a  very  important  one  to  me, 

—  where  shall  my  little  girl  go  to  make  herself 
what  she  wants  to  be  before  she  will  hear  of 
marriage.    Now,  don't  tell  me  anything  about 
expensive  places,  for  we  won't  hear  a  word  of 
it.    There  is  and  can  be  and  shall  be  (for  the 
present)  only  so  much  in  the  purse  —  where 
will  it  buy  the  most  of  what  we  want? 

Now,  dear  H ,  I  have  n't  time  to  tell 

you  about  my  having  fallen  in  love  —  you  '11  be 
very  glad  to  hear  of  it  I  know  —  and  you  may 
not  be  displeased  to  learn  that  you  're  the  only 
friend  east  of  California  who  has  been  told  it. 
I  would  n't  say  anything  to  anybody,  'cause 


CALIFORNIA  69 

I  don't  want  to  have  'em  write  me  nonsense 
about  it.  And  please  say  naught  to  any  one  of 
what  I  have  asked  you  about,  and  why.  Some 
of  these  days  I  '11  sit  down  and  relate  my  little 
story,  for  your  and  F.'s  amusement. 

I  don't  know  what  I  am  going  to  do.  Sex 
and  I  are  hobnobbing  over  the  question  of 
ways  and  means,  but  what  it  weighs,  and  what 
it  means,  we  don't  know  yet.  No  time  now. 
Hope  I'll  hear  from  you  to-morrow.  Answer 
this  as  soon  as  you  can. 

Yours  ever 

ED.  R.  SILL. 

I  have  n't  written  to  any  one  but  you  about 
my  conjugation  of  amo  —  amat,  and  shan't  at 
present. 

Love  to  the  Beloved  —  ask  her  if  I  shall 
send  my  dove  to  her  for  a  friend  if  she  goes 
East? 

FOLSOM,  CAL.,  June  13,  1865. 
MY  VERY  DEAR  FRIEND  — ...  In  the  first 
place  my  little  girl  will  very  likely  never  be 
my  wife,  —  for  a  number  of  complicated  rea 
sons  which  I  can't  tell  in  a  letter.  Even  if  we 
were  certain  of  marrying  sometime,  we  could 
not  do  so  for  two  years  at  least.  We  have  no 
money  and  no  sufficient  health.  And  a  person 
of  weak  physique  cannot  marry  without 
money,  as  you  can  easily  see.  Wherefore  the 


70  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

plan  which  you  so  eloquently  urge  of  being 
myself  the  teacher,  and  the  fellow  pupil  at 
the  same  time,  is  impossible  for  us.  You 
have  given  me  a  number  of  new  ideas  about 
this  troublesome  subject,  and  a  great  deal  to 
think  about.  I  believe  you  are  right  in  the 
main,  only  it  is  obvious  that  the  plan,  in  its 
minutiae,  is  only  applicable  to  persons,  either  of 
strong  constitutions  or  some  means  of  support 
besides  daily  and  wearying  work.  I  was  dis 
appointed  at  your  low  estimates  of  the  large 
schools  there,  but  I  still  think  they  must  be 

better  than  the  schools  in  this  country.  's 

mother  insists  upon  her  staying  in  California;  I 
insist  that  she  had  better  go  to  New  England. 
How  the  matter  will  end  I  cannot  foresee.  I  am 
in  great  trouble  and  perplexity  about  her  affairs 
and  my  own.  I  think  in  the  course  of  the  fall 
shall  be  with  the  Shears  on  a  ship  aiming 
around  the  Horn. 

I  expect  you  to  keep  my  confidence  in  your 
own  (and  your  wife's,  of  course,)  heart.  I  tell 
no  one  else  on  that  side  of  the  ocean.  I  am 
blue  and  bothered  by  various  perplexing  things, 
and  can't  write  more  than  this  note,  for  this 
steamer. 

....  I  really  think  that  Shears  and  I  shall 
be  on  the  ocean  by  September,  and  perhaps 
before.  I  am  tired  —  I  want  the  long  rest  of 
the  sea. 


CALIFORNIA  71 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  CAL.,  Aug.  6,  1865. 

I  have  been  running  from  sickness  for  the 
last  month  and  a  half.  The  malaria  caught 
me,  at  Folsom,  and  hit  hard.  Came  down  here 
and  the  sea  breezes  have  put  life  into  me  again. 
This  week  (this  is  the  first  day  of  it)  I  shall  go 
back  to  my  work.  I  don't  think  I  am  fond  of 

work,  H ,  are  you?  Oats  and  dignity  is 

much  preferable. 

People  think  that  a  thinking  man's  specu 
lations  about  religion,  etc.,  interfere  with  his 
daily  life  very  little,  but  how  certain  conclu 
sions  do  take  the  spine  out  of  one's  existence. 
These  Spencer  chaps  may  be  very  excellent, 
but  to  me  there  is  an  Apple  of  Sodom  smack 
about  it  all.  Little  pigmies.  What  kind  of 
babbling  is  this  for  worm-meat  to  emit?  "  For 
man"  (not  even  with  a  capital  M)  "is  not 
as  God  "  —  and  I  more  than  suspect  that  the 
said  worms  lick  their  chops  over  the  brain,  as 
over  the  coarser  tidbits  of  the  grave. 

Upon  the  mood  into  which  he  now  entered 
several  earlier  letters  throw  a  good  deal  of 
light,  letters  which  recall  undergraduate  dis 
putations  but  which  also  reveal  the  earnest 
religious  disposition  which  Sill  never  lost. 

"It  is  strange,"  he  writes  to  his  friend  Dex 
ter,  "how  the  weaker  and  lesser  thing  has 
power  with  us,  simply  through  its  nearness, 


72  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

to   overcome  the  greater  and   higher  —  i.e., 
how  troubles  of  earth  conquer  the  faith  and 
hope  of  the  larger  world,  as  the  flimsy  clouds 
by  being  so  near  us  overcome  the  stars.  I  won 
der  if  the  great  souls  of  old  times  did  not  some 
how  draw  and  clasp  close  to  them  the  unseen 
realities,  so  that  they  gained  such  victory  over 
present  and  visible  matters.    Tennyson  says, 
*  Oh,  well  for  him  whose  will  is  strong ! '  I  would 
substitute  'faith'  for  'will.'  The  will  is  an  iron 
heel  to  crush  down  the  casual  obstacles  of  the 
path,  but  faith  is  a  clinging  hand,  reaching  far 
upward  and  holding  by  the  hand  of  God.    I 
suppose  to  all  of  us  who  have  stepped  from 
college  into  the  actual  world,  all  things  have 
become  more  earnest  in  the  past  year.  It  would 
be  strange  if  each  of  us  had  not  thought  more 
seriously  of '  things  beyond,'  as  well  as  of  things 
here  in  reference  to  them.  Every  one  seems  to 
have   been   suffering   some  peculiar  trouble. 
You  say,  and  I  am  very  glad  for  you,  that  you 
have  gained  some  clearer  views.  I  do  not  know 
that  I  can  say  that  for  myself.  I  have  smitten 
down  some  errors  and  vanities,  perhaps;  —  it 
required  little  skill  to  do  that  —  I  had  but  to 
walk  into  my  mental  underbrush  anywhere, 
and  cut  and  slash  right  and  left.    I  could  pull 
tares  indiscriminately  with  no  danger  of  up 
rooting  any  wheat  —  for  there  was  but  little 
in  the  field.  I  wish  I  had  more  faith  in  men,  as 


CALIFORNIA  73 

well  as  in  God.  Out  of  all  the  human  beings  I 
ever  saw,  or  heard  of,  if  it  were  not  for  the  very 
few,  scattered  here  and  there  one,  in  history 
and  the  present,  I  should  be  utterly  hopeless  of 
man  and  his  world.  I  have  at  times  dragged 
anchor  and  drifted  almost  out  of  sight  of  my 
belief  in  immortality,  just  from  a  murky  con 
sideration  of  the  question,  What  is  there  in 
man  worth  perpetuation?  Why  should  a  mean 
little  pleasure-seeker  like  him  be  crystallized 
into  immortality?  Why  should  not  the  abused 
elements  scatter  and  recombine  into  higher 
forms?  But  then  I  cry,  'Get  thee  behind  me, 
Satan,'  and  grope  for  the  guiding  hand." 

SACRAMENTO,  Aug.  6,  '63. 

I  have  had  some  queer  things  going  on  in 
my  inner  man,  since  I  saw  you.  I  am  a  hermit 
here,  caring  for  none,  cared  for  by  none.  And 
it  has  grown  upon  me  to  cling  to  my  cave. 
Personal  defects,  morbid  shrinkings  from  ridi 
cule,  scorn  to  be  scorned  by  things  I  scorn, 
overpowering  sense  of  dissimilarity,  mortified 
pride  as  to  fulfilling  expectations,  dread  of  the 
dependent  helplessness  of  poverty,  and  a  host 
of  things,  some  little  and  mean  enough,  others 
larger  and  unspeakable,  make  me  hold  back 
from  returning  East.  .  .  . 

I  know  that  Duty  is  the  one  end,  —  and 
our  acquired  knowledge  is  a  ridiculous  mote, 


74  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

at  the  best,  —  yet  it  is  the  noble  hunger  of  the 
soul  —  this  after  truth.  And  to  me  Duty  seems 
to  say  that  one  particle  added  to  the  world's 
true  knowledge,  or  a  single  effort  put  forth  to 
make  men  see  higher  things  than  food  and 
money-getting,  is  better  than  all  bread-and- 
meat  philanthropies.  .  .  . 

SACRAMENTO,  Aug.  16,  1863. 

...  I'm  great  on  analogies,  you  know  (de 
fect  in  my  mind,  maybe  —  imagination  de 
veloped  at  expense  of  reason)  —  Well  —  I  often 
think  what  if  we  should  set  our  children  at 
some  occupation  or  other  —  told  them,  for  in 
stance,  to  stir  the  pudding  or  the  potato  in  the 
kettle  lest  it  burn,  while  we  went  upstairs  for 
something  —  and  Billy  should  say  to  Sammy, 
"don't  let's  stir  —  what's  the  use  —  don't  see 
the  reason  " — and  so  we  should  come  back  and 
find  the  dinner  burnt  up.  Oh,  how  we  'd  trounce 
'em! 

That's  an  absurd  way  of  putting  it,  and  not 
as  it  was  in  my  mind,  but  I'm  rattling  ahead 
to-night,  not  stopping  to  take  care  —  but  I  so 
very  often  think  of  us  as  foolish  children  who 
get  fretful,  and  scared,  and  maybe  to  crying  for 
Pa  to  strike  a  light  so  that  we  can  see  him,  and 
so  on,  when  if  we  only  knew  a  little  more,  it  is 
all  right.  You  see,  I  take  it  for  certain  that  these 
innate  human  instincts  (as,  the  conviction  of 


CALIFORNIA  75 

the  duty  of  obeying  conscience,  the  obligatori- 
ness  of  duty,  the  duty  of  seeking  true  knowledge, 
and  attaining  our  ideal  of  character,  etc.)  as 
the  word  of  God  to  us.  Intuitions  must  be  the 
commands  of  God.  Nonne?  They  are  the  voice 
of  the  Father,  in  the  night,  when  we  can  neither 
see  his  face  nor  touch  his  hand,  but  are  silly 
children  if  we  do  not  obey  without  getting 
frightened  at  the  dark.  Trusting  to  what  that 
same  Voice  tells  each  of  us  that  it  will  be  morn 
ing  in  a  few  hours,  and  light  (and  not  a  single 
man  ever  lived  who  has  not  heard  that  from  the 
Voice).  My  belief  is  that  these  analogies  are 
not  merely  accidental  things  —  but  are  meant 
to  teach  us.  ... 

To  his  classmate  Henry  Holt  he  wrote  more 
fully  on  this  matter  than  to  any  one  else,  and, 
immature  as  the  letter  is,  it  is  also  illuminat 
ing: — 

"You  ask  for  a  'brief  summary  of  my  rea 
sons  for  believing  in  immortality.  You  need 
not  have  stipulated  for  the  brevity.  The  rea 
sons  for  are  few  and  short,  to  me.  The  reasons 
against  are  the  ones  which  would  take  up  room 
in  telling.  Perhaps  the  former  have/orce  enough 
to  overbalance  the  weak  hosts  of  the  latter — 
I  hope  so.  —  I  do  not  think  immortality  can 
be  made  to  appear  very  certain  to  us.  'Lord,  we 
beseech  thee,'  is  about  all  we  can  say  for  our- 


76  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL  ' 

selves.  Here  is  my  best  reason  for  such  hope  as 
the  occasional  gleam  of  sunshine  lets  me  have. 

"Who  forged  that  other  influence 
That  heat  of  inward  evidence 
By  which  he  doubts  against  the  sense?' 

That  and  the  belief,  yea,  the  implanted  cer 
tainty  which  all  the  devils  cannot  root  out,  that 
God  is  Perfect  — 

"Thy  power  and  love  —  my  love  and  trust, 
Make  one  place  everywhere.' 

Cousin  thinks  he  has  proved  that  man  must  be 
immortal,  if  God  is  just.  If  I  was  sure  of  that, 
it  would  forever  end  all  doubt  with  me.  I  cannot 
believe  that  there  is  any  real  evil  in  the  universe, 
because  I  cannot  make  such  an  idea  compatible 
with  God's  Perfectness.  I  believe  pain  and 
pleasure  are  both  in  the  end,  in  some  mysteri 
ous  way,  ayaQa,  iravra  dya0a.  If  annihilation  is  a 
real  evil  to  man,  or  an  injustice  from  God,  that 
settles  it  with  me  as  impossible.  But  —  The 
great  reason  against  immortality,  to  my  mind, 
is  the  question,  Why  should  man  be  immortal? 
What  is  there  in  us  worth  perpetuation?  Why 
should  such  a  thing  be  kept,  and  not  moulded 
over  as  the  other  temporary  existences  are? 
Then  again  I  hear  the 

'  'little  whisper,  silver  clear,' — 
As  from  some  blissful  neighborhood, 
A  motion  faintly  understood, — 
'  I  see  the  end  and  know  the  good.' 
*  A  hidden  hope,'  the  voice  replied."  t 


CALIFORNIA  77 

"I  cannot  accept  what  you  say  about  Chris 
tianity  without  a  'but'  or  two.  Your  theory  is 

tempting,  I  acknowledge,  but,  H ,  there 

are  one  or  two  stern,  uncompromising  turns  of 
'either-or'  logic,  which  won't  let  me  accept 
peace  on  that  basis.  Either  Christ  was  God, 
or  He  was  not.  And  if  He  was,  we  must  take 
what  He  said  as  actual  truth,  not  to  be  twisted 
or  turned  aside  for  you  or  me,  if  we  were  nine 
times  the  men  we  are.  Through  his  name,  his 
sacrifice,  and  his  intercession,  and  thus  alone, 
can  we  inherit  eternal  life.  I  seem  to  see  Him 
standing  there,  on  the  common  ground  that 
other  men  were  treading,  with  the  actual  every 
day  sunshine  on  his  meek  head,  with  a  solemn, 
earnest  face  looking  at  you  and  me  as  we  stand 
with  the  multitude  about  Him,  and  saying 
with  that  awful  'authority,'  egovo-ias,  which 
He  is  said  to  have  always  seemed  to  have,  'he 
that  believeth  shall  be  saved  —  he  that  be- 
lieveth  not  shall  be  damned.'  'He  that  be 
lieveth  on  the  Son  hath  everlasting  life,  and  he 
that  believeth  not  shall  not  see  life.'  And  out 
of  that  word  'believeth'  it  is  impossible  to  get 
any  but  the  plain,  straightforward  meaning 
of  accepting  his  claims  and  assertions  as  ab 
solute  truth.  .  .  .  You  speak  of  Tennyson,  —  I 
take  it  that  in  'In  Memoriam'  we  have  the 
autobiography  of  his  progress  through  disbelief, 
doubt,  to  full  faith  —  I  don't  mean  that  he 


78  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

wrote  it  as  such,  but  his  views  show  them 
selves  from  epoch  to  epoch  of  his  mind's  life. 
The  introduction  was  written  last,  and  I  in 
terpret  that  as  orthodox  Church-of-England  be 
lief  in  the  Christian  religion.  .  .  . 

"Another  thing.  I  came  at  Christianity  one 
night  thinking  about  what  we  are,  and  what 
God  must  be,  from  another  side  (don't  you 
know,  that  often  we  seem  to  think  around  to  a 
certain  subject  by  way  of  a  newtrain  of  thought, 
and  suddenly  seem  to  come  upon  it  from  an  en 
tirely  different  point  of  the  compass  from  our 
usual  view  of  it).  I  was  thinking  out  into  the 
material  universe  creeping  out  from  star  to 
star,  from  system  to  system,  till  I  got  way 
off  where  I  was  afraid  almost  of  the  awful  dis 
tance  and  darkness,  and  then  still  there  was 
infinite  space  stretching  on  and  on,  and  no 
nearer  to  God,  yet,  —  where  was  my  Maker? 
Not  there;  the  air  and  ether  even  of  boundless 
space  was  not  the  medium  in  which  He  was. 
Completely  as  my  little  human  soul  shrunk 
and  cowered  before  the  mere  material  universe, 
still  there  was  another  more  awful,  more  in 
conceivable  —  the  universe  of  Spirit,  in  which 
(except  that  'in,'  which  denotes  a  space-rela 
tion,  means  nothing  when  used  of  that  world) 
God  is  —  and  as  the  overwhelming  thought 
came  upon  me  of  the  utter,  hopeless  distance 
(for  that  means  space,  that  can  be  traversed) 


CALIFORNIA  79 

between  Him  and  us,  I  suddenly  thought  — 
Oh,  if  we  had  a  Mediator  —  some  one  to  stand 
upon  the  boundary  land.  If  God  would  but 
reveal  Himself,  and  tell  us  some  little  word 
that  we  might  cling  to  as  actual  truth,  among 
all  the  shadows.  And  then  I  thought  how 
could  He,  how  could  He  be  likely  to,  but 
through  the  Perfect  Man.  And  my  ideal  im 
agination  of  what  such  a  revealed  God  would 
be,  and  what  he  would  do  and  say  to  men  in 
such  a  world,  so  tallied  with  all  we  know  of 
Jesus,  the  Son  of  Man,  that  I  was  awed  — 
thinking  what  things  we  may  have  been  re 
jecting. 

"I  used  to  think  if  God  revealed  Himself  to 
the  world,  He  would  have  given  some  sign 
which  would  have  compelled  belief,  —  some 
great  miraculous  revelation,  —  but  what  could 
He  have  done  which  we  should  have  been  sure 
of  as  the  work  of  Him?  If  He  had  blazed  across 
the  sky  in  some  terrible  grand  spectacle  —  or 
given  any  conceivable  display  of  power  —  how 
could  we  have  known  that  it  was  not  the  work 
of  some  lesser  divinity  —  some  evil  arch 
angel  or  (if  you  dislike  the  Bible  name)  some 
inhabitant  of  Sirius  or  the  Pleiads?  If  you  will 
but  think  of  it,  the  only  possible  way  to  con 
vince  us  completely,  and  beyond  chance  of 
doubt,  would  have  been  to  re-create  for  us 
the  universe,  before  our  eyes,  —  and  even  then 


80  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

we  should  not  be  sure  but  it  was  some  phan 
tasm  and  deceit.  Does  it  not  seem  probable 
that  He  would  do  just  what  this  strange  book 
says  He  had  done?  Coming  as  a  man,  doing 
a  few  simple  miracles  to  attract  men's  atten 
tion  and  prove  that  He  was  at  least  more  than 
mere  man,  making  his  miracles  acts  of  benefi 
cence,  to  prove  that  he  was  a  good,  not  evil, 
Superhuman,  proving  his  wisdom  by  his  knowl 
edge  of  the  human  heart  and  his  ethical  teach 
ings,  his  unselfishness  by  his  life  and  death,  his 
perfect  purity  and  truth  by  a  sinless  character? 
Even  as  I  write,  I  am  almost  persuaded  to  be 
a  Christian.  I  have  prayed  and  do  pray  for 
light,  —  and  if  I  seek  truth  with  a  pure  desire 
and  intention,  I  believe  I  shall  find  it  at  last." 

He  now  debated  the  ministry  and  halted 
between  two  opinions.  In  this  letter,  written 
from  Oakland  in  June,  1866,  he  seems  to  be 
sure  of  the  negative  decision;  —  who  could 
help  being  deflected  toward  literature  with  a 
volume  of  poems  in  his  trunk?  —  but  within 
the  year,  he  and  Shearer  were  on  their  way  to 
the  Harvard  Divinity  School. 

"I've  been  writing  a  lot  of  poetry.  Shall 
want  to  consult  you  about  it  when  I  see  you. 
Have  got  one  poem  of  about  a  thousand  lines 
and  a  lot  of  short  ones,  about  as  much  more, 
enough  to  make  a  gay  little  volume,  if  illus- 


CALIFORNIA  81 

trated  a  little,  and  got  out  nicely  —  but  as  to 
the  inside  don't  know  —  the  more  I  write  the 
less  satisfied  I  am  with  any  of  my  doings  in 
poetry  —  verily,  art  is  different  from  handi 
craft  as  Grimm  says  —  only  the  perfect  works 
ought  to  be  given  to  the  public  —  a  bad  boot 
or  a  tolerable  article  of  cloth  may  be  worth 
offering  for  sale  —  but  when  it  comes  to  offer 
ing  tolerable  art  —  after  Tennyson  and  the 
Brownings  -  -  't  won't  do  —  a  poor  devil  ought 
to  be  hung  for  doing  it  —  unless  he  be  very 
poor,  when  his  punishment  might  be  commuted 
into  imprisonment  for  life  with  only  Tupper 
and  the  Country  Parson  for  food  and  drink  - 
in  the  way  of  stale  toast  or  so. 

"I'm  reading  Marx's  'Musical  Composi 
tion.'  Ever  read  it?  ... 

"You  ask  .  .  .  what  I  —  we  —  want  to  do 
when  we  get  on  there.  ...  I  can't  tell  at  all  till 
I  have  got  there,  found  how  my  health  is  going 
to  be,  how  much  chance  of  literary  success  there 
is  for  me,  how  much  of  musical  .  .  . 

"I  can't  ever  preach  —  that  has  slowly  set 
tled  itself  in  spite  of  my  reluctant  hanging  on 
to  the  doubt  —  I  can't  solve  the  problems  — 
only  the  great  schoolmaster  Death  will  ever 
take  me  through  these  higher  mathematics  of 
the  religious  principia  —  this  side  of  his  school 
ing,  in  these  primary  grades,  I  never  can 
preach.  —  I  shall  teach  school,  I  suppose." 


82  EDWAED  ROWLAND  SILL 

It  is  one  of  the  surprises  in  Sill's  correspond 
ence  as  in  his  writings  to  find  how  few  are  the 
allusions  to  the  war.  Except  for  his  poem  on 
the  death  of  Lincoln,  it  never  inspired  his 
muse.  Not  that  he  was  indifferent;  he  was  too 
much  of  an  abolitionist  for  that;  but  appa 
rently  he  felt  that  the  moral  issue  was  being 
obscured,  and  his  sympathies  were  estranged. 
In  1862  he  wrote  :- 

"The  war  still  drags  along.  We  hear  by  tele 
graph  the  main  facts  —  when  there  are  any 
-  about  as  soon  as  you  do  —  but  none  of  the 
particulars  till  the  steamer  brings  the  New 
York  papers.  I  wish  we  had  acknowledged  the 
Southern  Confederacy  in  the  first  of  it,  then 
wiped  the  pro-slavery  blot  out  of  our  consti 
tution  and  then  pitched  in  and  wiped  out  the 
South,  with  'Freedom'  out  on  our  banners  fair 
and  square.  I  hope  in  the  1st  of  January  1  and 
an  overruling  Providence.  God  is  just,  and  the 
right  is  bound  to  prevail  in  the  end." 

Again  in  the  same  year  he  expresses  his  dis 
satisfaction  with  the  course  of  events :  — 

"I  hear  that 2  is  captured,  and  am  not 

sorry.  For  he  will  be  well  treated,  and  it  is 
better  than  fighting  on  the  Devil's  own  side, 
especially  with  the  risks  of  getting  verily 

1  The  1st  of  January,  1863,  —  the  date  on  which  the  Emanci 
pation  Proclamation  went  into  effect. 

2  A  friend  on  the  Confederate  side. 


CALIFORNIA  83 

'thrown  overboard'  by  some  patriotic  rifle 
ball.  .  .  .  The  war  'drags  its  slow  length  along.' 
I  wish  we  were  well  out  of  it.  What  a  hideous 
farce  it  has  been  so  far.  I  am  glad  you  are  not 
in  it.  A  wise  Providence  will  bring  good  out  of 
it  all  —  but  through  much  that  is  evil.  God's 
will  be  done!" 

In  1863,  after  Emancipation  had  become  a 
fact,  there  was  a  new  note  in  his  letters:  - 

"How people's  ideas  have  advanced  since  the 
war  commenced :  We  abolitionists  are  no  longer 
the  feeble  minority  —  when  so  many  of  the 
faces  of  their  own  sons  and  brothers  are  be 
grimed  with  gunpowder  and  the  smoke  of  bat 
tle,  even  the  old  wooden-headed  Democrats 
don't  look  very  critically  to  see  whether  the 
men  who  are  fighting  for  the  flag  had  white 
skins  originally  or  black.  They  have  tried  hard 
to  get  up  a  war  in  this  State  —  have  fitted  out 
pirates  in  the  harbors  (which  Uncle  Sam  has 
nabbed),  got  up  secret  organizations  and  arms, 
etc.,  and  several  leading  politicians  have  gone 
to  Dixie  to  fight  for  Jeff  and  slavery.  But  there 
is  too  much  New  England,  Ohio,  and  Michigan 
blood  out  here  to  allow  their  chivalry  any 
chance." 

Many  years  afterwards  the  recipient  of  some 
of  these  letters,  jotting  down  his  recollections 
of  Sill,  summed  up  the  California  period  and 
added  another  to  the  list  of  professions  which 


84  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

beckoned  to  him  during  these  years  of  uncer 
tainty. 

"A  few  months  after  reaching  California,  Sill 
decided  to  study  law.  But  I  fancy  that  his  legal 
studies,  if  ever  taken  up,  were  very  brief.  It 
would  be  difficult  to  imagine  a  man  of  ability 
less  fitted  than  Sill  for  practising  law.  Some 
what  later  he  came  under  the  influence  of  a 
physician,  and  for  a  while  had  some  serious 
intention  of  studying  and  practising  medicine. 
No  doubt  he  was  led  in  that  direction  by  the 
desire  of  getting  his  living  in  a  business  that 
could  be  made,  he  thought,  philanthropic.  But 
afterwards  he  was  glad  that  he  did  not  engage 
in  the  study  of  medicine,  for  he  had  lost  con 
fidence  in  the  specific  certainty  of  medical 
knowledge.  Another  project  that  Sill  very  seri 
ously  considered,  during  his  first  stay  in  Cali 
fornia,  was  going  on  to  the  stage  as  an  actor. 

"He  told  me  that  several  times  when  in  San 
Francisco,  he  passed  and  repassed  the  theatre 
trying  to  brace  up  his  courage  enough  to  go  in 
and  ask  the  manager  for  employment;  but 
turned  away  without  going  in.  If  Sill  could 
have  endured  the  drudgery  of  an  actor's  work 
and  some  other  objectionable  features  of  the 
business,  there  can  be  but  little  doubt  that  he 
would  have  risen  so  to  eminence.  He  had  most 
of  the  physical  qualities  —  which  are  so  im 
portant.  He  was  tall,  straight,  well-shaped;  his 


CALIFORNIA  85 

features  were  regular,  his  face  mobile,  his  eyes 
large  and  expressive;  his  voice  was  sonorous 
and  flexible,  and  in  utterance  was  agreeably 
distinct,  so  that  what  he  said  without  effort 
was  easily  understood  in  a  crowded  room.  In 
the  movement  of  his  arms  and  legs  he  was 
rather  angular,  but  not  so  much  so  as  Sir  Henry 
Irving.  There  can  hardly  be  any  doubt  that 
his  capacity  for  mastering  and  learning  to  ren 
der  a  part  was  great;  and  his  mind  had  so  much 
original  insight,  and  was  so  fertile  in  expedients, 
that  his  acting,  when  he  had  become  thoroughly 
at  home  in  the  work,  would  have  abounded 
in  'creations.'  But,  with  all  his  qualifica 
tions,  he  could  not  quite  make  up  his  mind  to 
seek  a  place  on  the  stage.  I  do  not  know 
whether  Sill  ever  seriously  thought  of  painting 
or  drawing  as  a  lifework.  He  had  an  aptitude 
for  both.  With  suitable  instruction  and  per 
sistent  effort  he  could  have  won  distinction 
with  brush  or  crayon.  Music  Sill  hungered  for, 
as  for  necessary  food.  His  taste,  by  natural 
affinity,  was  of  the  best.  With  great  composers 
he  seemed  to  be  at  one  in  their  most  serious 
moods.  He  acquired  considerable  skill  in 
playing  upon  several  musical  instruments,  but 
never  practised  enough  to  master  any;  yet  in 
rendering  some  short  production  that  he  had 
become  familiar  with,  he  showed  exquisite 
sensibility  and  power  of  expression." 


SETTLING   DOWN 

SILL  probably  little  realized,  when  he  sailed 
from  San  Francisco  in  the  summer  of  '66,  that 
the  two  great  questions  of  life  were  both  to  be 
answered  for  him  so  soon  —  that  within  the 
year  he  would  be  mated  in  love  and  settled  in 
his  life-work. 

He  sailed  on  the  18th  of  June,  in  company 
with  his  friend  Shearer,  still  inseparable,  on  the 
same  ship  and  under  the  same  captain  that  had 
brought  them  'round  the  Horn  five  years  be 
fore.  The  last  line  before  sailing  was  a  hasty 
scrawl  to  his  classmate,  [Governor]  Simeon 
Baldwin:  — 

DEAR  SIMMUN,  —  I  think  this  is  about  pos 
itively  the  last  from  this  side  the  planet.  I  hope 
when  we  get  East  that  you  and  I  may  have  the 
opportunity  to  make  each  other's  acquaint 
ance. 

In  summing  up  the  years  I've  been  here  I 
find  that  very  few  friends  have  passed  the 
valves  of  the  auricle  and  ventricle.  Mighty 
few,  as  Sex  [Shearer]  w'd  say,  —  and  conse 
quently  there's  room  in  that  capacious  organ 


SETTLING  DOWN  87 

for  not  only  the  old  shoots  to  remain  un- 
crowded,  but  to  enlarge  and  spread  in  it. 

It  is  bedtime  and  my  pipe  is  smoked  out.  I 
wish  I  had  an  angel  to  put  her  wings  over  me, 
as  you  have,  I  rejoice  to  reflect.  I  suppose  this 
particular  Beast  is  not  considered  quite  worthy 
of  Beauty  yet.  So  good-night. 

There  was  no  journal  on  the  return  voyage, 
and  apparently  there  were  no  letters,  though 
there  seems  to  have  been  some  labor  of  the  file 
upon  the  poems  alluded  to  in  an  earlier  letter, 
and  there  is  a  passage  in  "The  Earth-Spirit's 
Voices"  which  seems  to  belong  to  this  voyage 
rather  than  the  earlier  one.  He  has  been  writ 
ing  of  the  voices  of  earth  "  appealing  to  mortal 
spirits  across  the  barrier  of  the  limited  human 
intelligence,"  and  he  goes  on:  - 

"At  sea,  also,  I  once  heard  this  unavailing 
cry.  It  was  a  hundred  miles,  and  more,  from 
the  coast  of  Brazil.  The  night  was  clear  star 
light,  the  breeze  light  and  steady,  so  that  we 
were  sailing  silently.  The  stillness,  indeed,  was 
so  unusual  that  we  were  all  leaning  at  the 
weather  rail,  listening  to  it,  and  peering  far  off 
into  the  vanishing  waste  of  waves.  Suddenly  a 
distant  cry  arose  from  the  night;  no  one  could 
say  where,  or  how.  Then  it  was  twice  repeated : 
not  a  human  cry,  that  is  certain :  perhaps  a  sea- 
bird's,  but  not  like  that  of  any  bird  or  beast 


88  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

I  ever  heard.  If  it  expressed  anything,  it  was 
not  pain  nor  fear,  but  some  intense,  infinitely 
lonely  desire."  1 

Sill  and  Shearer  had  determined  to  go  to  the 
Harvard  Divinity  School,  there  to  study  the 
ology  ;  having  selected  the  place  because,  as  one 
of  their  friends  surmised,  "they  would  not  be 
required  there  to  believe  so  much  as  in  other 
American  schools "  —  a  design  which,  in  Sill's 
case,  was  destined  to  defeat;  for,  as  the  same 
friend  confesses,  "the  beliefs  were  too  much  for 
him";  or,  as  he  put  it  himself  not  unscornfully 
sometime  later,  "I  found  it  was  the  same  old 
whine  in  new  bottles."  But  that  is  to  antici 
pate.  Now,  arriving  in  New  York  in  the  late 
fall  of  '66,  the  travellers  went  on  to  Cambridge 
to  look  the  ground  over,  and  Sill  then  turned 
back  for  a  visit  with  his  relatives  in  Ohio 
before  settling  down  to  texts  and  commenta 
tors.  An  eventful  enough  visit  it  proved.  From 
Cuyahoga  Falls  he  writes  in  December :  — 

DEAR  H ,  —  I  intended  to  let  you  hear 

of  my  safe  arrival  here  before  this,  but  visit 
ors  can't  write  letters,  and  I  find  myself  a 
visitor,  and  almost  stranger,  at  my  "  home  "  — 
so  long  have  I  been  away. 

I  was  in  hopes  to  have  heard  from  you,  but 

1  The  Prose  of  Edward  Rowland  Sill,  pp.  48,  49. 


SETTLING  DOWN  89 

I  suppose  you  are  waiting  to  know  where  I  am. 
I  found  things  in  Cambridge  more  favorable 
than  I  had  expected;  they  will  pay  most  of 
my  expenses,  furnish  room,  books,  etc.,  and  a 
man's  tenets  or  intentions  are  not  in  the  ques 
tion  at  all  with  them  —  which  it  is  gay. 

I  shall  go  there  sans  doubt,  and  commence 
with  the  term  at  the  end  of  February.  I  may 
decide  to  go  right  on  there  next  month  and 
settle  myself.  Whenever  I  go  it  is  my  hope  and 
intention  to  stop  among  you  for  a  season. 
Ralphy  says  his  bed  is  always  twoable,  and  I 
want  to  get  acquainted  with  you  all.  It  was  a 
little  snip  of  a  "  see  "  which  I  got  at  you  there, 
yet  I  enjoyed  it  very  much. 

MRS.  FLORRIE!  The  music  I  received  at  the 
depot  and  thank  you  very  much.  I  have  been 
longing  for  those  "  Songs  Without  Words  "  for 
a  great  while.  I  believe  I  love  Mendelssohn 
best  of  all.  I  wish  I  knew  something  about 
music.  It  was  very  kind  in  you  to  send  me  that 
music.  I  have  n't  heard  it  yet.  The  piano  here 
is  in  a  vile  state  of  out-of-tunitiveness,  but  is  to 
be  reformed  so  soon  as  the  man  from  Cleveland 
can  come  down  to  our  little  village  to  it.  Then 
I  shall  hear  them  all,  though  I  can't  play  them. 
My  fingers  don't  know  how  to  find  their  way 
without  great  deliberation  and  bungling.  I  can 
only  pick  out  little  easiest  places  from  good 
music.  Perhaps  that  is  something  like  the  way 


90  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

in  which  my  present  acquaintance  with  you 
stands.  Indeed,  I  don't  know  but  it  would  hold 
of  H ,  too,  now. 

I  think  I  shall  see  you  in  about  a  month. 
Affectionately  your  friend, 

ED.  ROWLAND  SILL. 

This  miserable  climate !  A  perfect  caricature 
of  our  California  rainy  season!  I've  had  a  cold 
and  the  blues  ever  since  I  got  home  here. 

Sweetest  privilege  of  friendship  —  an  ear 
whereinto  one  may  growl!  May  n't  I? 

In  the  next  letter  the  poems  reappear,  and 
the  plan  for  a  book,  "The  Hermitage,  and 
Other  Poems,"  —  the  only  volume  offered  to 
the  public  in  Sill's  lifetime,  —  takes  more  defi 
nite  form.  It  came  out  something  more  than  a 
year  later  and  had  a  reception  not  wholly  novel 
for  a  poet's  first  book,  of  which  more  when  the 
time  comes.  Meantime,  the  past  tense  and  the 
tone  of  the  comment  sound  the  final  chord  in 
the  little  love  song  that  quavered  so  uncer 
tainly  in  California:  — 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  XMAS,  '66. 

DEAR  H ,  —  I  am  sorry  you  have  had 

so  much  nuisance  in  that  old  Concertina  — 
peace  to  its  ashes.  —  Let  'er  repose  on  some 
shelf  of  yours.  I  am  greatly  obliged  by  your 
effort  to  lay  the  ghost,  but  if  it  won't "  down, 


99 


SETTLING  DOWN  91 

let  it  stay  up  and  be .  I  perceive  it  will 

be  like  poor  Sparrowgrass'  boss,  wbich  he 
could  n't  even  get  anybody  to  steal. 

You  just  go  to  work  and  get  over  tbat 
"separation"  idea  as  an  attachment  to  the 
Theol.  idea  of  Sill.  Going  to  be  nothing  of  the 
kind.  Is  thy  servant  to  be  a  Jesuit?  Nay,  not 
even  a  priest.  A  "  Minister  "  if  you  will  —  are 
we  not  all  ministering  spirits?  Impossible  to 
separate  us  —  and  I  not  only  feel  confident 
that  I  can't  be  done  so  to,  but  I  know  that  so 
long  as  I  live  I  shall  be  trying,  at  least,  to  be  the 
kind  of  man  whom  you  must  Kke  and  cleave  to. 

I  don't  think  you'd  better  send  the  Poems 
back  —  I'll  send  you  soon  a  piece  to  insert  in 
Hermitage  —  a  footnote,  as  who  should  say, 
"This  whelp  was  in  love,  that  he  whines  so." 
Also  some  short  pomes. 

DEAR  MRS.  FLORRIE:  —  Merry  Xmas  and 
a  most  Happy  New  Year  to  you.  I  think  you 
write  a  most  delightful  business  letter.  I  am 
afraid  you  spoke  a  little  too  warmly  about  the 

poems,  though  I  'm  glad  Mr.  L likes  them, 

so  do  I  —  some  of  them  —  but  not  all.  I  liked 
Bob  W.'s 1  ever  so  muchly. 

The  Hermitage  is  subjective,  of  course, — so 
is  Life,  to  us.  The  public  must  be  educated  to 

1  Robert  Kelley  Weeks,  of  the  class  of  1862.  He  published 
several  poems  in  the  Nation,  and  a  couple  of  small  volumes, 
got  the  enthusiastic  approval  of  Stoddard  and  Stedman,  and 
died  young. 


92  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

be  more  subjective  themselves.  "  Pomes  "  are 
not  to  tickle  them  but  to  help  them  up.  I  don't 
want  it  to  be  any  mere  dramatic  —  a  "  dram  " 
in  the  "attic"  is  not  the  way  I  write  my 
poetry,  but  by  sunshine,  on  cold  water,  in  the 
same  room  I  live  in.  Could  perhaps  put  in 
some  Swinburne,  but  don't  approve  of  looking 
at  life  from  that  sty  and  trough. 

I  am  really  glad   at  heart   that  you  and 

H enjoyed  reading  my  things,  for  I  like 

you  both  so  much,  and  should  be  very  suspi 
cious  of  poems  which  did  not  please  you  at  all. 

I  am  having  a  pleasant  visit  at  my  uncle's 
here  —  a  sort  of  second  father  he  is  to  me.  But 
I  am  having  some  perplexities  to  manage  and 
worried  a  good  deal  —  hope  it  will  be  over  in  a 
little,  when  I  will  write  you  less  like  a  maniac. 
I  am  curious  to  see  your  footnotes  on  my 
margins. 

Yours  very  — 

ED.  R.  SILL. 

The  next  letter  tells  its  own  story,  and  needs 
no  comment. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  OHIO,  Jan.  27, 1867. 
I   would  not   inconvenience  you  so   con 
stantly,  but  I  have  changed  my  plans  so  much 
as  to  make  it  necessary  to  bother  somebody 
and  I  prefer  you. 


SETTLING  DOWN  93 

So  much  for  biz  — 

Now  open  your  ears  for  some  news.  You 
and  Mrs.  Florrie  are  hereby  invited  to  my 
wedding  on  Thursday  evening,  February  7th. 
My  cousin  Bess  is  to  be  the  bride.  Not  the 
"  little  Mrs.  Browning  "  whom  you  suspected, 
but  her  sister.  I  smiled  at  you  having  hit  the 
nail  without  having  hit  it  on  the  head.  Eliza 
beth  Newbury  Sill  (daughter  of  my  best  uncle 
and  my  guardian  all  through  my  college  days), 
sometimes  called  Bess,  also  Bessie,  also  Lizzie, 
also  Eliz.  It  is  a  love  match  which  has  been 
about  ten  years  getting  up.  I  Ve  loved  her  ever 
since  I  was  a  little  chap,  and  she  me.  We  al 
ways  tacitly  considered  the  consanguinity  as  a 
barrier,  till,  lately,  we  have  decided  to  smash  it 
-  and  very  lately  have  decided  to  marry  soon, 
and  yesterday  fixed  the  day  as  above  stated. 

Are  you  glad  I'm  going  to  be  happy  at  last? 
I  have  always  longed  so  for  a  satisfied,  unim 
peded  love,  given  and  taken  —  now  I  have  it. 
I  need  not  tell  you,  who  have  been  there,  that  I 
cannot  love  other  friends  less  but  always  more 
for  this  —  the  other  boys  probably  can't  under 
stand  that  so  well  except,  to  be  sure,  as  you 
have  made  the  demonstration. 

We  shall  stay  here  a  week  after  marrying, 
then  visit  a  friend  in  Titusville,  Pennsylvania, 
for  two  days,  then  to  Brooklyn,  and  in  New 
York  I  shall  see  you.  Some  day  Mrs.  Bess  and 


94  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

I  will  walk  in  on  you  at  the  store  and  damage 
your  business  for  a  while.  I  am  going  to  Cam 
bridge  all  the  same,  and  Bess  is  to  stay  here  till 
I  get  through  there.  Her  father  wants  her  for 
housekeeper  and  pet  till  I  can  and  must  take 
her  away  from  him. 

From  New  York  she  conies  back  here  with 
some  relatives,  and  I  stay  and  see  you  folks 
awhile  and  then  go  up  to  Cambridge. 

I  am  in  a  hurry  to  write  some  other  neces 
sary  letters  so  good-night.  Remember  us,  you 
two,  Thursday  night  of  next  week,  and  think 
your  good  wishes  across  to  us. 

Yours,  doubly, 

E.  R.  S. 
Good-night. 

Sill's  stay  in  Cambridge  was  too  short  for  the 
best  results;  but  the  unsatisfactoriness  of  it  did 
not  lie  wholly,  nor  perhaps  even  chiefly,  in  its 
brevity.  Had  he  remained  longer  in  those  sur 
roundings  he  might  have  penetrated  into  the 
currents  of  high  and  eager  intellectual  life  which 
ran  so  strongly  there,  but  it  is  not  certain  that 
he  would.  His  pride,  his  native  reserve,  and 
his  lack  of  contacts  with  the  contemporaneous 
thought  of  America,  as  well  as  of  Europe,  made 
it  unlikely.  Nevertheless,  that  a  genuine  poet, 
of  no  unworthy  achievement,  should  come 
into  the  neighborhood  of  Lowell,  Longfellow, 


SETTLING  DOWN  95 

Holmes,  Emerson,  and  Norton  and  yet  meet 
none  of  them,  seems  hardly  short  of  a  tragedy. 
Among  the  fruits  of  the  months  which  he 
spent  at  the  Divinity  School  was  the  hymn, 
"  Send  down  thy  truth,  O  Lord,"  written  for 
a  fellow-student's  ordination  and  now  a 
favorite,  not  only  in  the  Unitarian  communion, 
but  beyond  its  boundaries. 

The  letters  from  Cambridge,  such  as  are 
preserved,  are  all  addressed  to  classmates.  Few 
as  they  are,  they  tell  the  story  in  outline,  indi 
cating  his  lessening  interest  in  theology  and  his 
growing  realization  of  the  necessity  of  making 
a  living  by  some  other  means.  His  attempts 
to  make  light  of  the  rebuffs  at  the  hands  of 
editors  and  of  his  own  expectations  from 
the  forthcoming  volume  need  not  deceive  us. 
Poets  at  twenty-six  are  not  a  callous  folk,  and 
there  never  was  a  less  indifferent  member  of 
the  genus  irritabile. 

CAMBRIDGE,  April  8, 1867. 
DEARLY  BELOVED  [his  classmate,  Henry 
Holt],  —  Yours  have  been  received,  but  I  have 
been  waiting  for  a  good  chance  when  I  should 
feel  like  writing  a  letter.  The  Ticknor  one  you 
enclosed  was  my  regular  one,  of  course.  No 
comments.  I  can't  avoid  the  conclusion  that 
the  "Atlantic"  and  I  don't  agree  as  to  what  is 
decent  poetry.  I  warn  you  in  time  —  if  you 


96  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

take  hold  of  those  poems  you'll  have  the  Mags 
down  on  'em  and  the  books  unsold.  They're 
not  popular  —  whether  they're  good  or  not. 
I  have  n't  had  the  requisite  cultivation;  and 
besides  my  knocking  around  and  feeling  the 
cold  shoulder  of  things  has  n't  improved  the 
imaginative  powers  —  the  delicacy  is  blunted, 
and  bloom  gone  —  if  they  were  there.  I  believe 
that  born  into  a  rich  Englishman's  son's  shoes, 
like  all  of  those  chaps,  I  could  have  added  to  the 
world's  little  stock  of  poetry.  As  it  is,  I  'm  out 
and  some  one  else  is  in,  and  there's  no  help  for 
it.  So  don't  get  into  any  scrape.  I  warn  you, 
I  shan't  feel  at  all  more  seedy  than  at  present 
if  you  send  that  bundle  up  to  me  instead  of  to 
the  printer.  I  grow  less  and  less  desirous  to  have 
them  published  every  day  I  live.  .  .  . 

Of  course  I  needn't  say  that  I'm  blue  as 
the  devil  —  started  on  a  long  track  —  straight 
track,  you  see  —  no  curves  concealing  hidden 
and  pleasant  perhapses  —  pretty  sandy,  and 
only  two  foot-prints  most  of  the  way. 

She  may  be  here  next  year,  but 't  will  cost 
like  thunder,  and  I  see  plainly  that  there  is  no 
hope  of  side  earnings.  This  Taintor  thing  [Col 
lege  songs]  is  no  go.  I  am  trying  to  get  him  up 
some  things,  but  I  make  a  melancholy  failure. 
Try  to  write  some  songs  for  young  ones  when 
you're  in  the  dumps,  and  see  what  you  think 
of  it!  I'm  going  to  send  some  things  to  him  in 


'  SETTLING  DOWN  97 

your  care  because  he  was  to  change  his  address 
and  I  don't  know  it.  Will  you  address  'em  to 
him?  Wretched  things,  not  worth  a  cent  a 
thousand  —  I  wrote  till  towards  morning  on 
'em  t'  other  night  and  condemned  'ein  to  the 
fire  in  the  morning  —  that's  my  present  style. 
I'm  not  pregnant  and  how  can  anything  be 
born?  The  god  has  n't  embraced  my  Muse  for 
a  good  many  months. 

Good  place  to  study  here,  poor  place  for 
anything  else,  so  I  won't  even  try  any  longer  to 
write  a  letter. 

Now  I  'm  going  at  Mr.  Cousin's  ideas  of  the 
idea  of  God.  Mr.  Monkey 's  chattering  about 
the  man  who  threw  a  stone  at  him  the  other 
day  —  or  was  it  cakes  he  threw?  The  monkey 
can't  tell. 

Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  Apr.,  1867. 
I  am  enjoying  my  opportunities  here  hugely. 
They  give  me  books  and  let  me  alone  —  what 
more  could  a  man  ask?  Besides,  some  good  lec 
tures  outside  —  Agassiz,  etc.  I  went  to  a  sa 
cred  concert  last  Sunday  night  in  Music  Hall. 
It  was  very  fine  —  I  don't  know  that  I  ever 
enjoyed  music  so  much.  Did  n't  hear  the  great 
organ,  though,  so  I  am  going  over  to  hear 
that  in  an  orchestral  concert  this  P.M.  Sunday 


98  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

night  there  was  glorious  orchestra  music,  and 
Arbuckle  had  a  cornet  arrangement  of  'Ade 
laide'  with  orchestra  which  nearly  drew  my 
heart  out  of  my  body.  I  have  always  raved 
about  that  song,  but  never  heard  it  perfectly 
given  before.  What  a  splendor  brass  is  when 
exquisitely  played  —  how  it  winds  and  winds 
into  one's  very  Ego,  and  tangles  itself  up  with 
the  emotions  and  passions  and  soars  up  with 
them.  The  wood  sings  all  around  one  —  the 
strings  wail  and  implore  to  us  —  but  the  brass 
enters  in  and  carries  one  off  bodily.  Do  you 
concur?  I  want  to  hear  that  great  organ  —  it 
was  music  only  to  look  at  it  —  a  great,  dark, 
shadowy  cathedral  looming  up  at  the  end  of  the 
immense  Hall  —  Apollo  Belvedere  up  in  a  niche 
opposite,  looking  scornful,  as  if  to  say  that  all 
that  solemn,  shadowy,  bitter-sweet  music  — 
the  heartbroken  triumph  —  the  fire  of  tears  — 
is  poor  by  the  side  of  his  memories  of  the  Greek 
health  and  energy,  and  music  that  was  sunshine 
dissolved  in  wine.  —  But  one  looks  back  to 
the  statue  of  the  Master  in  front  of  the  organ, 
and  thinks  the  man  is  truer  than  the  false 
god. 

Delightful  spring  weather  —  trees  coming 
out  —  grass  green.  Nature  is  all  under  good 
subjection,  though,  about  here  —  not  even  a 
Tutor's  Lane  to  refresh  the  jwild  part  of  a 
man. 


SETTLING  DOWN  99 

Wisconsin  gone  for  Woman's  Suffrage!  .  .  . 
It's  gay,  is  n't  it?  —  Massachusetts  must  hang 
her  head  and  be  second  chop  hereafter. 

I  think  pomesj  must  be,  anonymous.  Are 
you  going  to  arrange  for  summer? 

CAMBRIDGE,  May  22,  '67. 

DEAR  H — , .  .  .  Sex  and  I  have  been  talking 
about  Zschokke  —  have  his  stories  been  trans 
lated?  If  not,  why  would  n't  it  be  a  bully  idea 
to  do  it?  And  why  could  n't  Sex  and  I  trans 
late,  say  a  half  dozen  or  eight  or  ten  or  two,  to 
put  in  a  volume  together.  I  have  a  volume  here 
containing  twenty-one  stories  —  "Zschokke's 
Novellen."  They  are  very  fine,  to  my  taste, 
and  ought  to  be  as  popular  here  as  in  Vater- 
land.  What  say  you? 

The  way  I  look  at  it  as  concerning  the  owl 1 
is  this — that  solemn  bird  has  confined  its  hoot 
ing  lately  to  lightish  things.  You  need  some 
thing  more  solid  — for  a  change.  Zschokke 
is  a  sort  of  mixture  of  Jean  Paul,  G.  P.  R. 
James,  and  Kingsley.  There's  love,  ethics, 
political  economy,  and  transcendentalism.  .  .  . 

He  had  evidently  been  invited  to  look  up 
some  facts  and  personal  impressions  of  Tenny 
son  among  those  in  Boston  and  vicinity  who 

1  An  allusion  to  the  colophon  of  Holt's  publishing  house  which 
bears  the  figure  of  an  owl. 


100  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

knew  the  poet.  The  brief  reply  points  again  his 
isolation  in  Cambridge  —  of  which  he  was 
keenly  conscious:  — - 

"I  couldn't  unearth  anything  here  about 
Tenny[son],  'cause  I  don't  know  a  soul  and 
can't  know  'em  —  to  "root  around  among 
my  landlady  and  my  washerwoman  would  n't 
be  productive." 

Summer  found  him  again  in  the  hospitable 
home  at  Cuyahoga  Falls  and  in  a  mood  of 
comparative  calm.  The  book  appeared  in  the 
spring  of  1868  and  was  received  with  the  se 
verity  which,  for  no  explainable  reason,  it 
sometimes  befalls  a  first  book  of  verse  to  en 
counter.  The  reviewer  in  the  "Nation,"  then, 
as  now,  looked  to  by  the  author  with  peculiar 
solicitude,  was  particularly  harsh.  Together 
with  other  severities,  and  the  indifference  of 
the  public,  this  sufficiently  discouraged  Sill 
from  further  publication.  Never  again  did  he 
venture  into  the  public  with  a  book.  It  was 
only  after  his  death  that  the  now  familiar  little 
blue  volumes  —  "Poems,"  "The  Hermitage," 
and  "Hermione"  -  were  brought  out.  Later 
still  came  "The  Prose  of  Edward  Rowland  Sill" 
and  the  "Collected  Poems."  Meanwhile  the 
modest  square  green  volumes  of  1868  have 
become  dear  to  booklovers  and  listed  among 
collectors'  "desiderata." 


SETTLING  DOWN  101 

As  to  the  translating,  he  had  misjudged  his 
temperament.  He  was  far  too  high-strung  for 
that  plodding  sort  of  labor,  as  he  discovered 
when  he  undertook  to  put  Richter's  "Coopera 
tive  Stores"  into  English. 

CAMBRIDGE,  MONDAY  MORNING. 

DEAR  H , — We  neither  of  us  understand 

French.  Your  German  chap  better  take  last 
chapter  and  go  on  backward  to  meet  us  —  we 
can't  go  any  faster  than  now.  I  have  been  put 
ting  in  every  available  hour  since  I  began  —  it 
is  the  hardest  sort  of  stuff  we  could  possibly 
undertake,  half  the  words  not  in  the  dictionary, 
only  to  be  guessed  at.  Customs,  etc.,  referred 
to  which  I  never  heard  of  and  also  must  guess 
at.  I  have  n't  touched  study  or  recitation  since 
I  commenced;  there  was  a  recess  last  week  - 
anniversary  week,  and  I  flunked  all  the  meetings 
except  one  —  the  Free  Religion  meeting.  Forty 
stories  and  a  dozen  poems  would  be  child's  play 
to  one  work  on  Polit.  Econ.  for  a  foreigner. 
Your  German  cove  will  have  a  good  deal  of 
it  to  do,  if  it  is  to  come  out  "immediately," 
and  I'm  very  glad  you  have  got  him  at  hand. 

Had  I  better  call  Statuten  rules,  and  how  in 
the  name  of  all  the  Teufels  shall  we  translate 
Markengeschafte  —  ticket-method  is  the  near 
est  I  can  come  to  it.  How  much  shall  I  call  a 
franc  in  cents?  A  thaler  I  have  computed  at 


102  EDWAKD  ROWLAND  SILL 

.72  —  taking  it  from  this  author's  statement 
that  6.66|  thalers  =  1  pound  sterling. 

Rushing  this  so,  I  have  no  time  to  correct 
phraseology,  or  think  of  notes,  but  a  revision 
may  be  possible  in  proof-sheets.  Please  answer 
immediately. 

Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

P.S.  We  can't  make  it  go  an  inch  faster,  and 
there 's  no  one  here  who  could  help.  You  had 
better  put  the  German  chap  hard  at  it,  and 
unless  he's  a  sight  faster  than  we,  two  of  them. 

The  end  of  the  academic  year  saw  the  end 
of  Sill's  relation  to  the  Divinity  School  and  he 
relinquished  theology,  though,  as  appears  from 
the  next  letter,  not  without  a  lingering  back 
ward  look:  for  he  was  a  preacher  all  his  life 
long. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  August,  1867. 
SUNDAY  P.M. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  I  wonder  how  and  where 
this  hot  afternoon  finds  you.  It  is  too  hot  here 
to  do  anything,  yet  I  am  moved  to  write  you  a 
sweltering  word  or  two. 

I  have  determined  not  to  return  to  Cam 
bridge.  There  could  be  no  pulpit  for  me  after 
going  through  there,  except  as  an  independ 
ent,  self -supported  minister,  which  of  course 
is  open  to  any  one  with  a  purse.  I  came  re- 


SETTLING  DOWN  103 

luctantly  to  that  conclusion.  Another  person, 
even  with  my  opinions  in  theology,  might  have 
judged  differently.  It  is  no  sentimentalism  with 
me  —  it  is  simply  a  solemn  conviction  that  a 
man  must  speak  the  truth  as  fast  and  as  far  as 
he  knows  it  —  truth  to  him.  I  may  be  in  error 
—  but  what  I  believe  is  my  sacred  truth,  and 
must  not  be  diluted.  When  I  get  money  enough 
to  live  on  I  mean  to  preach  religion  as  I  be 
lieve  in  it.  Emerson  could  not  preach,  and  now 
I  understand  why. 

So,  the  alternatives. 

School  teaching  always  has  stood  first.  No 
decent  salaries  in  this  country.  No  freedom  to 
follow  my  own  way.  No  position  available  so 
far  as  I  know.  Hence,  California. 

After  a  quiet  summer  in  Ohio,  he  returned 
to  New  York,  there  to  make  trial  whether  it 
was  in  him  to  earn  his  living  by  his  pen.  The 
fragments  preserved  of  his  writing  at  this  time 
reveal  his  shortcomings  as  a  journalist.  He  was 
too  severe  in  subject  and  manner  for  the  New 
York  newspaper  of  the  sixties.  The  story  of 
the  adventure  is  told  in  a  single  letter.  The 
prose  fragments  which  follow  possess  more  than 
a  little  interest  as  giving  his  view  of  New  York, 
and  of  the  poems,  one  —  "  Summer  Afternoon  " 
-  has  a  place  in  one  of  the  slender  volumes 
collected  after  his  death. 


104  EDWAKD  ROWLAND  SILL 

BROOKLYN,  N.Y.,  Nov.,  '67. 

I  came  to  New  York  something  over  two 
months  ago.  Found  nothing  better  than  help 
ing  edit  a  one-horse  paper.  Did  it  six  weeks. 
Did  n't  suit,  and  was  n't  suited,  and  quit. 
Am  now  translating  a  German  romance  [Ran's 
"Mozart"].  ...  It  will  take  me  six  weeks  or 
more.  .  .  . 

What  a  horrid  bilk  New  York  is,  speaking 
of  bilks.  And  the  way  they  brag  here  —  Lord 
John  of  the  East  —  you'd  think  there  was  no 
other  centre,  and  very  little  if  any  circumfer 
ence.  Fact  is,  they  have  so  little  conception 
here  of  the  things  there  are  to  be  known,  that 
they  easily  believe  they  know  it  all.  A  man 
who  never  sees  a  tree,  or  a  blade  of  grass,  or  a 
bit  of  sky,  or  stops  still  long  enough  to  look  down 
into  another  human  being's  eyes,  of  course  has 
no  interrogation  points  awakened  in  him.  He 
has  learned  to  know  the  streets  of  the  city  — 
which  he  remembers  being  ignorant  of  when  he 
came  here  —  and  he  has  learned  the  cheap  con 
ventionalities  —  which  he  blushed  not  to  know, 
once  —  and  there's  nothing  else  to  learn,  is 
there?  So  he  knows  it  all,  does  n't  he?  And  how 
he  swells  up  and  swaggers  on  the  strength  of 
it!  ...  I  don't  think  a  man  needs  any  further 
provocation  to  cut  his  throat,  in  simple  moral 
nausea,  than  to  walk  up  Broadway,  and  then 
down  it  on  the  other  side,  after  he  has  got  suf- 


SETTLING  DOWN  105 

ficiently  used  to  the  rattletebang  to  have  his 
eyes  about  him,  so  as  to  examine  the  faces,  ex 
pressions,  of  features,  gait,  gestures,  etc.  .  .  . 

TIMOTHY   GRASS   TO  BOHEMIAN  GLASS 

To  Bohemian  Glass,  Esq.,  New  York  City:  — 

DEAR  COUSIN,  In  the  midst  of  my  rural  soli 
tudes  here  in  the  little  village  of  Greenville,  as  I  have 
walked  about  the  quiet  fields,  or  through  the  au 
tumnal  woods,  I  have  been  thinking  how  "un 
friended,  melancholy,  slow"  our  country  life  is, 
compared  with  the  keen  and  swift  current  of  yours 
in  the  great  city.  And  for  some  weeks  (for  it  takes 
us  a  good  while  to  make  up  our  minds  in  the  coun 
try),  I  have  been  resolving  to  reach  out  an  epistolary 
hand  to  you,  Cousin  Glass,  and  ask  you  to  write  me 
occasional  letters,  as  you  can  snatch  the  time  from 
the  whirl  of  your  city  avocations,  giving  me  your 
ideas  upon  men  and  books,  and  the  incidents  and 
accidents  of  modern  life.  I  say  "modern  life,"  for 
I  well  know  that  I  am  behind  the  times.  You  know 
my  library.  It  consists  of  old  books,  for  the  most 
part.  The  old  classics,  the  old  standard  authors  — 
well,  I  believe  I  should  cleave  to  them  if  I  knew  the 
moderns  as  well,  but  the  moderns  I  do  not  know. 
Can  you  not,  from  time  to  time,  give  me  little 
glimpses  of  the  literature  which  comes  and  goes, 
foam-like,  on  the  current  of  the  present?  And  will 
you  not,  at  the  same  time,  tell  me  what  is  this  great 
mystery  of  New  York  life,  what  are  its  pleasures, 
what  does  it  give  in  compensation  for  the  noise  and 
hurry,  and  the  absence  of  all  sweet  natural  sounds 
and  sights?  For  me,  you  know  my  pleasures;  the 
morning  walks,  these  breezy  autumn  days,  golden 
alike  with  sunshine  and  the  yellowing  leaves;  the 


106  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

fragrant  air  of  the  still  woods,  the  quiet  sail  down 
the  winding  river,  with  the  ripples  purling  and 
plashing  against  the  prow;  the  evenings  in  the  old 
library  at  home,  alone  but  seldom  lonely,  with  my 
books  around  me,  and  the  little  parlor  organ  — 
the  gilt  pipes  are  rather  tarnished,  Cousin  Glass,  but 
the  tones  breathe  purer  and  mellower  for  every 
passing  year.  There  I  sit  and  read,  and  meditate, 
and  listen  to  the  cheery  crickets,  and  the  Rune  of 
the  river;  and  if  sometimes  a  little  lonesome  twinge 
comes  over  my  back,  like  a  sudden  chill  from  a 
draft  of  air,  I  pat  my  dog's  head,  and  look  into  his 
big,  moist  eyes  (he  looks  me  in  the  eyes  like  a  man 
—  did  you  ever  see  a  dog  do  it?),  and  wonder  how 
far  aloof  his  soul  will  follow  mine  through  the  grada 
tions  of  the  future  after  we  die.  For  we  're  two  old 
vagabonds,  Leo  and  I,  young  as  we  are,  and  good 
for  not  much  of  anything  but  to  lie  in  the  sun. 

Well,  I  write  poetry  now  and  then.  Your  well-in 
formed  and  judicious  critical  papers  there  in  the 
city,  which  you  have  sent  me,  I  see  with  grief  do  not 
approve  of  this  employment.  No  doubt  they  have 
some  good  and  wise  reason  for  this  opinion,  but  of 
course  it  would  be  impossible  for  me  to  ask  such  emi 
nent  and  learned  writers  what  it  is.  Perhaps  they, 
like  yourself,  cousin  Glass,  have  been  so  long  in  the 
splendid  and  glittering  life  of  the  city  with  its  wis 
dom  and  polish  and  art,  that  they  have  forgotten 
how  beautiful  the  woods  are  and  the  gurgling  brooks, 
and  the  stars  that  dust  the  water's  dusky  bosom 
with  their  fire.  Perhaps  they  do  not  know  how  one 
is  driven,  as  by  "a  certain  divine  madness,"  to 
hollow  out  in  words  a  place  for  these  splendors  of 
nature  and  set  them  there,  carved  into  expression 
with  whatsoever  fidelity  one  is  capable  of. 

Well,  Cousin  Glass,  I  am  writing  too  long  a 


SETTLING   DOWN  107 

letter.  Hoping  for  a  speedy  reply,  I  subscribe  my 
self  your  loving  cousin, 

TIMOTHY  GRASS. 

P.S.  I  send  some  verses  which  I  wrote  in  the 
summer,  perhaps  they  will  sound  a  little  like  an 
echo  now  that  autumn  is  come. 

Summer  Afternoon 

Far  in  hollow  mountain  canons 

Brood,  with  purple-folded  pinions, 
Flocks  of  drowsy  distance-colors  on  their  nests, 

And  the  bare,  round  slopes,  for  forests 

Have  cloud-shadows,  floating  forests, 
On  their  breasts. 

Winds  are  wakening  and  dying, 

Questions  low  with  low  replying, 
Through  the  oaks  a  hushed  and  trembling  whisper  goes; 

Faint  and  rich  the  air  with  odors. 

Hyacinth  and  spicy  odors 
Of  the  rose. 

Even  the  flowerless  acacia 

Is  one  flower,  such  slender  stature, 
With  its  latticed  leaves  a- tremble  in  the  sun: 

They  have  shower-drops  for  blossoms. 

Quivering  globes  of  diamond  blossoms, 
Every  one. 

In  the  blue  of  heaven  holy 

Clouds  ^floating,  floating  slowly, 
Pure  in  snowy  robes  and  sunny  silver  crown, 

And  they  look  like  gentle  angels  — 

Leisure-full  and  loitering  angels, 
Looking  down. 

Half  the  birds  are  wild  with  singing, 
And  the  rest  with  rhythmic  winging 
Sing  in  melody  of  motion  to  the  sight; 


108  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

Every  little  sparrow  twitters, 
Cheerily  chirps,  and  cheeps,  and  twitters 
His  delight. 

Sad  at  heart  amid  the  splendor, 

Dull  to  all  the  radiance  tender, 
What  can  I  for  such  a  world  give  back  again? 

Could  I  only  hint  the  beauty  — 

Some  least  shadow  of  the  beauty  — 
Unto  men! 

TO   MR.    TIMOTHY   GRASS,    GREENVILLE 

DEAR  COUSIN  TIMOTHY,  —  Got  yours  —  glad  to 
hear  from  you  —  will  be  pleased  to  correspond.  We 
city  folks  need  little  whiffs  of  the  woods  and  mea 
dows  now  and  then,  to  keep  our  hearts  in  the  right 
place.  Must  n't  expect  much  from  me  in  the  way 
of  letters  —  have  to  write  in  a  hurry,  you  know. 

You  seem  to  think  we're  awfully  wise,  here  in 
New  York.  Well,  our  life  here  is  a  good  deal  like 
railroad  travelling  —  whizz  —  bang  —  whirling  by 
all  sorts  of  things  at  a  great  rate,  as  if  't  were  for 
dear  life.  We  on  the  inside  poke  our  heads  out  of 
the  windows,  and  look  very  wise  —  you  'd  think 
we  knew  all  about  it  —  but  we  don't,  Cousin 
Timothy  —  we  don't.  People  out  in  the  fields 
alongside  half  the  time  know  a  good  deal  more 
about  it  than  we  do —  but  we  look  as  if  we  did,  and 
a  good  many  times  we  think  we  do;  so  it  comes  to 
the  same  thing,  in  most  people's  estimation. 

We  're  not  all  so  good  here  as  you  seem  to  think, 
either.  It's  a  streak  of  fat  and  a  streak  of  lean. 
Great  many  fine  men  here  —  great  many  good 
books  written  here  —  eloquent  preachers  —  able 
lecturers,  and  all  that  —  but  some  of  us  are  great 
scamps,  Cousin  Timothy  —  great  scamps.  Yet, 
hosts  of  good  men  here,  too  —  young  brains,  and 


SETTLING   DOWN  109 

old  ones,  that  are  clear  as  a  bell  —  not  to  be  taken 
in  by  lies  in  opinion  or  lies  in  practice  —  true  hearts 
that  are  brave  as  lions  —  splendid  fellows  putter 
ing  over  dry  day's-works  —  you  would  n't  know 
them  till  some  pinch  comes  —  then  you  find  them 
always  in  the  right  place.  It's  a  little  like  needles 
in  a  haymow,  to  find  them  —  no  —  more  like  hunt 
ing  the  needles  with  a  mighty  magnet  —  every  man 
with  a  magnet  in  his  spinal  column  somewhere, 
that  draws  his  like  out  of  the  crowd  and  fastens 
them  to  him.  Here  are  a  thousand  faces,  all 
strangers  —  all  busy  —  suddenly  you  find  you 
know  every  one  you  want  to  among  them.  Un 
consciously  the  magnets  were  at  work  —  out  come 
your  kith  and  kin. 

We  are  terribly  busy  here  —  blood  thermometers 
are  kept  up  to  the  boiling  point  —  pulses  tick  fast, 
like  little  trip-hammers.  No  meditation  —  no 
musings.  All  is  business,  business,  business.  My 
brother,  Blone  Glass,  who  has  tastes,  says:  "'Tis 
all  very  well;  but  this  doing  business  is  such  a  waste 
of  time!"  'T  is  a  good  deal  so,  I  admit.  Men  here 
are  mainly  bent  on  getting  something  for  them 
selves  —  money  —  houses  —  position  — •  well,  peo 
ple  generally  are  bent  on  that.  Human  nature  is 
mostly  selfish,  Cousin  Timothy  —  i.e.,  out  of  our 
family.  Still  their  toil  and  trouble  goes  for  the  most 
part  to  somebody  else,  after  all.  We  are  all  better 
off  for  their  shrewdness  and  energy.  They  "build 
better  than  they  know."  That's  Emerson  —  you 
know  him?  Too  modern  for  you,  I  suppose.  That 
is  nothing  —  turn  him  upside  down,  and  imagine 
'tis  a  mouldy  Brahmin,  discoursing  in  the  Punjab 
fifty  thousand  years  ago,  and  you  can't  help  liking 
him.  I  know  you  cling  to  your  old-fashioned  bards. 
But  Emerson  is  worth  the  whole  nursery  of  them. 


110  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

He  is  a  perfect  old  telegraph  line  from  the  Infinite 
to  this  world.  People  don't  like  him  because  he  is 
condensed  and  oracular,  like  all  telegrams.  They 
won't  take  the  trouble  to  understand  the  message 

—  prefer  to  get  its  substance,  diluted,  in  the  morn 
ing  papers.    You   want   to  know   about   modern 
writers  —  get  Emerson  and  read  him.  Take  his 
poems  first.  You  '11  forgive  his  style  easier  as  apolo 
gized  for  by  the  music  and  the  rhythm. 

Speaking  of  poetry  —  yours  was  very  good  — 
only  Blone  says  that  "Acacia  does  n't  rhyme  with 
stature,  and  never  will!"  And,  Cousin  Timothy! 
Don't  write  a  thing  in  verse  till  you  see  it,  sharp  and 
clear  before  your  mind's  eye  as  a  flash  of  lightning 
on  a  black  sky.  Xo  danger  but  that  you  will  feel 
truly  enough.  Mind  you  see  truly,  first.  Good  eye 
sight  —  that 's  what  the  world  wants. 

That's  what  we  get  in  the  city,  too.  If  a  man's 
eyes  are  not  open,  he  gets  run  over  every  time  he 
crosses  the  street.  And  that's  the  way  the  purblind 
fellows  are  disposed  of  —  run  over,  Cousin  Timothy 

—  by  sharper  competitors,  or  by  the  press,  or  by  the 
march  of  ideas,  or  some  other  driving  institution. 
And  we  that  survive  get  our  wits  sharpened  at  last. 

What  we  want  from  writers  is  new  truths,  truly 
put.  If  you  have  got  one,  in  politics,  in  religion,  in 
art,  in  philosophy,  or  in  patent  medicines  —  you 
are  our  man. 

I,  too,  send  some  lines.  They're  not  dignified. 
"We  can't  spend  time  to  be  dignified,  in  New  York. 
You  may  not  like  the  subject.  Violets  don't  spring 
up  and  fade  on  Broadway,  Cousin  Timothy,  but 
wall-eyed  old  steeds  do. 

Good-bye, 

Yours  truly, 

BOHEMIAN  GLASS. 


SETTLING   DOWN 

The  Song  of  the  Horse 

A  poor  old  stage-horse,  lank  and  thin, 
,-  Not  much  else  but  bones  and  skin, 
I  jog  along,  week  out,  week  in, 
Kicked,  and  cursed,  and  meanly  fed, 
Jammed  in  the  side  and  jerked  by  the  head  — 
And  the  thing  I  can't  at  all  make  out 
Is,  what  on  earth  it's  all  about? 

Why  was  I  made  to  toil  and  tug 
For  this  odd  little  human  bug, 
Two-legged,  dumpy  as  a  jug, 
Who  sits  aloft,  my  ribs  to  batter  — 
Or  why  was  he  made,  for  that  matter? 
And,  if  I  needs  must  be  created, 
Why  is  it  that  I  was  not  fated 
To  prance  and  curvet,  finely  mated, 
Silver-harnessed,  sleek  and  fat, 
With  groom  and  blanket,  and  all  that? 

Here  I  go,  day  after  day, 
Pounding  and  slipping  down  Broadway, 
Dragging  these  curious  biped  things, 
With  fore-legs  gone,  and  yet  no  wings  — 
Where  they  all  go  to  /  don't  know, 
Nor  why  hi  the  world  they  hurry  so, 
Nor  what  good  use  Heaven  puts  them  to ! 

It  was  n't  my  fault,  you  see,  at  all, 
That  my  joints  grew  big,  and  my  muscles  small, 
And  so  I  missed  of  a  rich  man's  stall, 
I  'm  clumsy,  crooked,  stupid,  slow, 
Yet  the  meanest  horse  is  a  horse,  you  know, 
And  his  ribs  can  ache  with  the  kick  or  blow, 
As  well  as  the  glossiest  nags  that  go.        ^ 
O  Lord,  how  long  will  they  use  me  so? 
And  when  may  the  equine  spirit  go 
Where  glorified  horses  stand  in  a  row, 
Switching  their  bright  tails  to  and  fro, ' 


112  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

Careless  of  either  wheel  or  whoa  — 
Where  oats  are  always  a  propos, 
And  flies  don't  grow! 
Oh,  no! 
O! 

BOHEMIAN   GLASS  AS  AN   EDITOR 
A  Lamentation 

To  Mr.  Timothy  Grass:  — 

DEAR  COUSIN  TIMOTHY,  —  'T  is  pleasant  to  im 
agine  you  there  in  your  quiet  library  these  chilly  fall 
evenings,  putting  up  your  slippered  feet  in  a  chair 
before  the  fireplace,  pulling  down  some  "quaint 
and  curious  volume  of  forgotten  lore,"  and  having 
a  good  old  drowsy,  comfortable  time  of  it.  It  makes 
"literature"  seem  a  very  nice  thing  to  you,  of 
course.  Oh,  you  leisurely,  unmolested  fellows! 
What  good,  nonsensical,  useless,  blessed  hours  you 
can  spend  over  books ! 

You  Ve  no  idea  how  sick  we  get  of  literature  here. 
You've  no  idea  what  cartloads  of  stupid,  wooden, 
flat,  seasick  stuff  is  written  and  printed  here,  day 
after  day  and  year  after  year  —  you've  no  idea, 
and  if  you  had,  it  would  make  you  weep  and  howl. 
The  periodical  literature  —  you  escape  most  of  it 
out  there,  where,  in  a  measure,  remoteness  acts  as 
a  kind  of  strainer,  and  gives  you  only  the  finer  and 
more  enduring  writings.  You,  who  have  a  sort  of 
veneration  for  a  writer,  as  if  he  were  in  some  way  a 
second  cousin  of  Shakespeare  and  Plato  —  you 
should  see  the  stuff  which  a  person  on  a  daily  paper 
is  obliged  to  see,  in  exchanges,  periodicals,  new 
publications,  and  so  on.  You  should  know  what 
helpless  donkeys  some  "writers"  are.  From 
"Godey's  Lady's  Book"  (which  Blone  calls  the 
"Great  Female  Mind  Enfeebler")  up  to  the  last 


SETTLING  DOWN  113 

new  treatise  on  the  "Inscrutable  Periodicity  of 
Perihelions." 

Then,  too,  you  who  adore  the  fine  arts  so  much, 
should  see  the  pictures  in  the  police  papers,  which 
are  posted  up  proudly  at  all  the  news  stands,  and 
surrounded  by  crowds  of  rapt  and  ravished  gazers. 
The  most  filthy,  brutal,  beastly,  abominable  wood 
cuts  —  and  the  bloated  and  leering  fool-faces  gloat 
ing  over  them,  from  one  end  of  Broadway  to  the 
other! 

Ah!  Cousin  Timothy.  —  "And  God  saw  every 
thing  that  He  had  made,  and  behold,  it  was  very 
good."  But  that  was  ages  ago  —  ages  before 
Babylon  was  builded.  It  was  all  garden,  then,  and 
there  was  neither  emigration,  rum,  nor  fashionable 
religion. 

A  writer  on  a  paper  has  other  crosses,  too,  be 
sides  a  compulsory  acquaintance  with  current  litera 
ture.  He  has  his  unpleasantnesses,  "late"  and  early. 
For  instance,  I  noticed  a  man's  book  in  the  paper. 
I  did  n't  say  it  was  nice.  It  was  n't  nice.  He  met 
me  on  Broadway.  With  a  furious  glare  he  roared, 
"Sir,  you're  an  ass!"  I  replied,  with  a  placid  smile, 
"Sir,  what  of  it?  "  He  went  away. 

I  did  n't  deny  his  charge.  Relatively  speaking, 
perhaps,  there  was  some  truth  in  it.  The  fact  is  we 
are  all  a  little  tinged  with  a  gentle  asinine  element. 
There's  a  certain  amount  of  dulness,  obstinacy, 
wrong-headedness,  about  all  of  us,  if  you  get  us  in 
just  the  right  light  to  show  it. 

Strange  what  a  natural  and  instinctive  desire 
there  is  in  the  human  breast  to  call  somebody  else 
an  ass !  We  come  up  against  somebody's  particular 
point  of  stupidity  or  perversity  (or  what  seems  so  to 
our  plans),  and  the  soul  is  absolutely  refreshed  and 
exhilarated  by  expressing  our  feeling  towards  a 


114  T  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

fellow-being  in  that  Saxon  epithet.  How  my  heart 
bleeds  for  a  man  when  I  see  him  wrought  up  to  ex 
actly  that  pitch  of  emotion,  but  restrained  and 
muzzled  from  satisfying  his  inward  yearning  by 
some  conventional  idea  of  dignity  or  politeness. 

'T  is  getting  cold  nights  and  mornings  here  in 
New  York.  The  poor  children  that  one  sees,  with 
their  bare  legs  and  their  naked  feet  on  the  pave 
ment,  begin  to  strike  one  with  a  shivery  sensa 
tion. 

The  placards  in  the  drug-shop  windows  adver 
tising  "ice-cold  soda-water"  are  getting  to  have  a 
dreary  aspect,  as  one  glances  at  them  of  a  drizzly 
cold  morning.  But  winter  is  n't  winter  in  New  York, 
you  know.  It  is  philharmonics,  and  brilliant  gather 
ings,  and  opera  —  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage. 
Winter  is  no  winter  here  for  the  rich,  Cousin  Timo 
thy;  for  the  poor,  O  't  is  horrible!  Freezing  and  star 
vation,  fiery  rum,  when  no  longer  food  is  possible, 
hunger  and  cold  goading  men  to  robbery  and 
murder,  and  women  to  despair  and  worse.  God 
pity  the  city  poor  in  winter,  men  will  not. 

I  enclose  my  usual  splash  of  verses. 

In  haste,  yours  truly, 

BOHEMIAN  GLASS. 

The  News  Girl 

A  tiny,  blue-eyed,  Elfin  lass 
Meets  me  upon  the  street  I  pass, 

In  going  to  the  ferry; 
Barefooted,  scantly  clothed,  and  thin, 
With  little  weazen  cheeks  and  chin, 

Yet  always  chirk  and  merry: 

Ever  merry,  however  pale, 
I  always  hear  her,  as  I  draw  near  her  — 

"'Ere's  THE  MAIL,  sir  !—  MAIL?  —  MAIL?" 


SETTLING  DOWN  115 

With  that  same  piping  little  tune, 
She  waits  there  every  afternoon, 

Selling  her  bunch  of  papers; 
She  scarcely  looks  aside  to  see 
What's  passing  by,  of  grief  or  glee  — 

No  childish  tricks  or  capers; 

Her  pattering  bare  feet  never  fail 
To  run  and  meet  me,  and  chirping  greet  me, 

"'Ere's  THE  MAIL,  sir!  —  MAIL?  —  MAIL?" 

Her  dingy  frock  is  scant  and  torn, 
Her  old,  old  face  looks  wan  and  worn, 

Yet  always  sweet  and  sunny; 
Week  in,  week  out,  she  is  the  same  — 
I  asked  her  once  what  was  her  name, 

And,  jingling  all  her  money, 

Holding  a  paper  up  for  sale, 
The  little  midget  answered,  "Bridget! 

Want  THE  MAIL,  sir?  —  MAIL?  —  MAIL?" 

I  wonder  where  she  goes  at  night, 

And  in  what  nook  the  poor  young  sprite 

Finds  room  for  rest  and  sleeping; 
I  wonder  if  her  little  bones 
Go  home  to  blows  and  cuffs,  and  tones 

That  roughly  set  her  weeping  — 

When,  rainy  days,  the  pennies  fail 
And  few  were  buying,  for  all  her  crying 

"'Ere's  THE  MAIL,  sir!  —  MAIL?  —  MAIL?" 

O  rich  and  happy  people!  you 

Whose  ways  are  smooth,  and  woes  are  few, 

Whose  life  brims  o'er  with  blisses, 
Pity  the  little  patient  face, 
That  never  knows  the  tender  grace 

Of  kind  caress  or  kisses, 

For  you,  the  blessings  never  fail; 
For  her  't  is  only  to  wait  there  lonely 

And  cry:  "THE  MAIL,  sir?  —  MAIL?  — MAIL?" 


116         EDWARD;  ROWLAND  SILL 

At  this  last  winding  of  the  road  as  it  enters 
upon  the  long  straight  stretch,  it  is  interesting 
to  see  how  the  bends  and  turns  of  the  course 
looked  to  Sill  in  retrospect.  In  writing  to  one 
of  his  own  students  at  the  University  of  Cali 
fornia  years  later,  he  said :  — 

"You  are  getting  on  toward  the  close  of  the 
Second  Act  —  the  college  days :  and  no  doubt 
the  management  of  the  Third  Act  begins  to 
occupy  your  mind  a  good  deal  —  and  perhaps 
to  vex  it  a  little.  What  to  do  with  one's  life 
gets  to  be  a  large  question  toward  the  close  of 
the  senior  year.  In  my  own,  I  was  saved  a  part 
of  the  question,  for  my  health  was  frail  and 
threatened  me  a  little,  so  that  the  immediate 
duty  was  plain  enough  —  to  cut  and  run;  which 
I  did,  on  a  long  sea  voyage;  it  was  a  toss-up 
which  way  it  should  be,  among  all  the  oceans 
and  continents,  but  it  happened  to  be  to  Cali 
fornia.  I  had  pretty  much  determined  that  I 
would  try  to  get  a  better  aim  than  the  com 
mon  ones.  'I  could  not  hide  that  some  had 
striven,9  at  least,  whatever  they  had  'attained/ 
Egoism,  pure  and  simple,  had  somehow  al 
ways  struck  me  —  theoretically  —  as  mighty 
paltry  for  a  grown-up  man;  a  kind  of  perma 
nent  cMcZ-condition.  And  I  cast  about  for 
some  way  of  combining  service  with  bread  and 
butter.  The  ministry,  or  teaching,  I  finally 
settled  it  must  be  for  me.  It  was  a  little  nar- 


SETTLING   DOWN  117 

row  ...  to  confine  the  choice  to  those  two. 
I  can  see  now  that  there  are  lots  of  ways  to 
serve  —  more  even  than  ways  to  get  bread 
and  butter.  .  .  . 

"I  ...  took  a  saddle-horse,  rode  about  the 
country  and  hunted  up  a  locality  I  liked  the 
looks  of,  with  a  clean  little  school-house  and 
wholesome-looking  farm  people  about  it,  and 
taught  that  country  school.  I  found  there  was 
no  difficulty  in  doing  it,  after  a  fashion,  at 
least;  so  I  kept  on.  ... 

"One  thing  is  clear:  a  year  or  two  of  teach 
ing  is  good  honest  work  for  any  one  —  an  ad 
vantage  to  others,  and  to  self  (for  others  in  the 
future),  as  well.  But  if  you  knew  you  should 
then  go  into  medicine,  I  think  I  should  not 
wait,  but  go  into  it  at  once.  You  may  think 
medicine  ministers  only  to  the  body  —  but, 
1,  the  body  is  a  necessary  condition  of  higher 
things,  and  2,  a  good  physician  finds  himself 
in  one  of  the  most  influential  positions  in  the 
community,  for  good.  Nor  need  his  work  be 
confined  to  his  lancet  and  pill-boxes  (though 
there's  a  nobleness  about  those,  when  you 
think  of  the  relations  of  mind  and  body),  but 
there  is  an  endless  range  of  studies,  and  per 
haps  of  writing,  possible  to  such  a  profession. 
"One  thing  we  must  try  to  realize.  Our  in 
dividual  drop  of  force  is  only  one  in  a  great  sea. 
Perhaps,  even  if  we  saw  just  what  particular 


118  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

piece  of  work  the  world  most  needed,  we  should 
not  be  the  man  for  it.  I  see  a  number  of  things 
that  need  tremendously  to  be  done;  but  I  can't 
do  them.  I  was  n't  properly  endowed,  or  I 
had  n't,  and  could  n't  have  got,  the  training 
for  it.  Meantime  I  do  what  my  hand  finds  to 
do  and  try  not  to  fret  ....  Anyway,  the 
thing  is,  not  to  spoil  too  much  time  and  brains 
trying  to  be  sure  of  the  absolutely  best  work — 
but  to  use  all  reasonable  effort  to  see,  and  then 
—  even  if  in  vexatious  doubt  —  to  strike  into 
the  most  probably  sensible  course,  and  work 
like  a  locomotive.  One  can  at  least  fix  his 
course  for  a  year  ahead  —  and  agree  with  his 
conscience  to  let  him  alone  to  work  at  that  for 
the  year.  And  so  year  by  year,  if  no  other  way 
is  possible  to  one's  temperament,  one  can  get 
through  a  fine  stent  of  work  in  a  lifetime." 

The  summer  he  spent  as  usual  in  Ohio  and 
succeeded  in  settling  matters  with  himself.  If 
Literature  would  n't  give  him  a  living  Teach 
ing  must. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  June,  1868. 

When  a  man  is  actually  living,  he  and  Na 
ture  laying  their  heads  together,  and  things 
occupying  whole  days,  all  this  use  of  symbols  of 
things  —  words  —  becomes  a  sort  of  mouldy 
amusement,  and  my  portfolio  goes  to  sleep 
when  I  get  into  real  outdoor  life.  I  never  got 
so  near  to  Nature  as  this  year  —  that  is,  to 


SETTLING  DOWN  119 

homely  Nature  — not,  the  sublime.  I  mean 
to  the  good  old  mother  Nature  of  gardens  and 
ploughed  fields  and  river  and  tame  wood  — 
the  mistress  sort  of  Nature  I  have  had  more  to 
do  with  at  some  past  times. 

So  I  have  not  written  any  poetry  lately, 
but  have  had  some  real  satisfactory  thinks  and 
good  useful  times.  What  fun  it  is  to  see  one's 
muscles  swelling  up  a  little  from  pushing  a 
plane  and  handling  spade  and  hoe,  and  to  feel 
one's  backbone  stiffening  up  as  by  deposits  of 
grit  along  the  vertebrae.  And  what  a  whole 
some  thing  it  is  to  plant  one's  foundation  on 
the  ground  under  an  apple  tree,  and  soberly 
think  —  while  digging  up  the  sod  with  a  dull 
jackknife  —  how  life  is  a  pretty  fair  genial 
thing  after  all,  and  how  happiness  evidently 
is  n't  the  only  thing  the  gods  consider  good  for 
man;  and  how  thoroughly  it  pays  to  try  to 
keep  healthy  like  the  apple  trees  and  the 
beasties  and  the  winds  and  soil  —  and  kick 
pleasures  to  the  Devil,  and  be  sturdy  and  real. 

Of  course,  one  gets  peevish  and  sentimental 
and  sour  and  all  other  bad  traits  on  him  at 
times  afterward,  but  he  can  look  back  for 
weeks  to  one  thorough-going  sensible  forenoon, 
and  bolster  himself  thereby.  .  .  . 

It  is  a  thousand  pities  that  such  fellows 
as  you  and  I  should  n't  be  able  to  earn  a  decent 
living  at  some  employment  which  wouldn't 


120  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

grind  dreadfully.  But  what  the  Lord  wants  us 
to  learn,  I  begin  to  suspect,  is  to  grind  —  and 
that  in  the  dreadfullest  manner.  .  .  . 

The  fact  is,  we  [ought  to  have  learned  some 
one  practical  disagreeable  trade  —  not  pro 
fession,  for  it  is  better  to  be  honest  (the  laws 
of  the  universe  being  as  they  are)  .  .  .  and  we 
ought  to  have  pitched  into  it  as  other  people 
do  —  but  this  fair  witch  of  poetry  trips  a 
man  up. 

You  say  you've  got  a  dead  book  —  so  have 
I.  Jolly,  ain't  it?  I  'm  content  over  mine, 
though,  and  was  long  ago.  If  my  shoemaking 
does  n't  suit,  the  shoes  must  lie  on  the  shelf 
till  I  learn  the  trade  better  —  that's  all. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  OHIO,  Aug.  15,  1868. 
...  I  have  made  my  mind  up  (and  my 
spinal  column,  too,  I  trust  —  stiff  and  solid) 
to  earn  my  b.  and  b.  so  far  as  possible  by  work 
that  shall  for  other  reasons,  as  well,  seem  useful. 
That 's  the  reason  I  prefer  to  teach  rather  than 
go  into  business  or  law,  etc.  I  wish  you  New 
Haven  fellows  would  collar  every  graduating 
man  and  make  him  see  that  thing  —  that  the 
mere  fact  of  a  certain  occupation's  being  the 
means  of  sustenance,  is  no  honest  claim  for  its 
adoption  or  continuance.  I  believe  every  baby 
that's  born  can  make  the  longer  or  shorter 
transition  from  cradle  to  coffin,  decently,  hon- 


SETTLING   DOWN  121 

estly,  and  comfortably  (relatively  speaking), 
by  letting  their  hands  find  to  do  only  such 
things  as  are  intrinsically  good  and  useful. 
Probably  three-quarters  of  them  (the  graduates) 
ought  to  learn  a  trade  or  work  a  farm.  I  wish 
I  could  annually  take  nine-tenths  of  the  law 
candidates  and  stake  them  out  ("picket"  them) 
in  a  ten-acre  lot  with  a  few  bags  of  seed,  a  hoe, 
and  the  Bible  —  there  to  be  left  for  life. 

I  sympathize  with  your  longing  at  times  for 
an  ascetic  bout  with  the  devil  that  is  in  us. 
But  we  both  know  (appealing  to  Philip  sober) 
that  seven  devils  would  come  to  the  funeral 
of  the  one  smashed  one,  if  we  tried  it  ever  so 
thoroughly.  So  don't  let's  do  it.  And  so  far 
from  running  away  from  each  other  (a  part  of 
asceticism),  let's  run  into  each  other  all  we 
can. .  .  . 

With  the  fall  he  got  fairly  to  work  at  his 
teaching :  — 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Nov.  8,  1868. 
...  I  shan't  think  of  the  poem  till  next 
spring,  for  that  is  the  time  when  birds  pair 
and  sing,  and  poets  prepare  and  ditto.  Man 
undergoes  a  shrinkage  and  goosefleshiness  of 
soul  during  the  fall  and  winter,  and  only  in 
spring  is  the  rock  smitten.  Don't  you  find  that 
the  inner  man  takes  that  occasion  to  flap  its 


122  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

wings,  and  mount  all  the  highest  rail-fences  of 
the  moral  world,  and  do  up  a  year's  crowing? 
You  mention  a  "librarian"  idea.  That 
would  have  many  temptations  for  me.  Often 
I  think  I  am  better  fitted  to  deal  with  books 
than  with  men.  Perhaps  I  should  do  well  to 
fit  myself,  as  you  say,  and  try  for  a  position. 
Yet  I  have  got  the  school-iron  in  the  fire  now, 
and  must  wait  till  't  is  thoroughly  tried.  My 
school  is  only  a  country  school,  and  I  suppose, 
to  answer  your  question  as  you  meant  it,  we 
are  to  only  "  exist "  there,  for  a  while.  We  are 
to  board  in  the  village,  however,  and  shall 
have  some  little  society.  Wadsworth  is  the 
place,  and  Medina  County  is  the  County. 
Near  here  .  .  . 

Then  there  fell  a  blow  from  which  Sill  did 
not  recover  for  many  a  year  —  the  illness  and 
death  of  his  alter  ego,  Shearer,  forecasted  in 
the  letter  from  Palmer  to  which  Sill  refers:  - 

WADSWORTH,  OHIO,  Feb.  7,  1869. 
DEAR  H  -  — ,  —  I  enclose  a  letter  from 
California  which  will  tell  you  its  sad  news 
better  than  I  can.  Palmer  is  one  of  my  and 
Sex's  first  and  best  friends  there.  Lives  at 
Oakland.  Do  not  let  any  one  know  about  it 
who  will  be  in  danger  of  writing  dolorously  to 
Sex,  or  letting  him  know  what  we  hear  from 


SETTLING  DOWN  123 

friends  there.  You  will  see  to  that,  though,  a 
little  thing  might  save  or  kill  him  now.  We 
must  all  write  jolly  letters  and  often.  I  should 
go  out  to  him  at  once  if  I  had  means,  for  it 
almost  seems  as  if  a  companion,  the  right  one, 
might  save  him,  for  he  is  still  able  to  ride  and 
be  diverted.  There  is  no  one  there  who  will 
take  him  and  do  what  ought  to  be  done.  I  be 
lieve  it  could  be  done.  It  is  the  mind  that  has 
been  killing  him,  not  the  climate. 
Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

There  was  evidently  a  plan  for  Sill  to  go 
out  to  California  and  look  after  Shearer:  in 
fact  Sill  all  but  suggested  it  in  the  last  letter, 
but  it  was  plainly  enough  not  practicable. 
Between  the  lines  one  reads  the  fine  loyal  com 
radeship  that  united  this  group  of  college 
friends:  — 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  Feb.  fcl,  1869. 

DEAR  H ,  —  Your  three  letters,  two  to 

Cuyahoga  Falls  and  one  to  Wadsworth,  were 
received.  ...  As  it  is  there  is  nothing  for  it 
but  to  renounce.  Perhaps  I  could  not  do  much 
if  I  were  there,  but  it  seems  as  though  it  might 
be  won  yet.  [It  is  easy  enough  for  a  man  to 
look  death  in  the  face  for  himself,  but  for  an 
other,  and  such  a  one,  it's  awful  to  me.  And 


124  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

the  idea  of  a  few  thousand  miles  seems  nothing 
and  paltry  for  such  a  stake,  —  only,  can  it  be 
done?  And  if  the  answer  is  no,  what  help  for 
it?  A  man  may  curse  or  groan  according  to 
his  temperament  —  neither  wisely,  I  presume. 
So  I  shall  not  go,  but  shall  go  about  my  own 
business  just  as  if  all  were  well.  And  the  out 
look  is  that  I  shall  not  very  long  survive  him, 
only  the  difference  is  he  would  have  done 
something  and  I  never  should  have.  I  am 
pretty  much  played  out  with  debating  this 
thing. 

Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

The  teaching  succeeded:  he  is  now  in  charge 
of  the  town  schools,  and  can  re-read  old  books ! 

CUYAHOGA  FAIJ.S,  OHIO,  Aug.  29,  '69. 

I  have  been  meaning  to  write  to  you  to 
morrow  for  ever  so  long.  I  have  been  very  busy 
and  bothered  or  't  would  have  got  done.  I  am 
just  settled  in  winter  quarters.  We  have 
moved  to  our  new  boarding-place,  rooms  at  the 
hotel,  and  this  is  the  first  day  I  have  really 
been  at  home  since  I  saw  you. 

I  am  going  to  stay  here  and  take  the  High 
School,  superintending  the  other  schools;  and 
I  have  been  bustling  about  getting  ready  for 
my  work.  It  will  be  a  pretty  hard  place,  but 


SETTLING  DOWN  125 

what  of  that?  As  Sex  always  used  to  write 
me  about  his  own  unpleasantnesses,  "Quid  re- 
fert,  Caio?"  We  have  got  two  very  nice  little 
rooms,  southside  with  sunshine  to  order,  trees 
contiguous,  quiet,  and  fixed  up  very  pleas 
antly.  .  .  . 

I  have,  several  times  over,  been  into  "Won 
derland"  with  Miss  Alice.    We  have  found  it, 
as  you  said,  the  very  delightfullest  book  that 
ever  was.  He  that  did  it  is  a  genius  and  a  won 
der  himself.    The  Cheshire  Cat,  and  the  Fla 
mingo  neck  that  would  n't  do  for  croquet  mal 
let,  the  March  Hare,  and  the  way  the  animals 
snubbed  and  contradicted  and  confused  Alice 
- 1  never  read  anything  that  pleased  me  so 
much.  I  think  the  Mad  Tea-Party  is  the  best 
chapter  —  and  for  single  incidents  I  believe  I 
award  the  palm  to  the  Cheshire  Cat  coming 
back  to  ask  if  she  said  Pig  or  Fig,  and  consent 
ing  readily  to  vanish  by  degrees,  leaving  the 
grin  to  the  last!  The  March  Hare  is  the  gem 
of  the  pictures,  too,  with  the  King  Lear  touch 
about  his  strawy  head,  and  the  glare  of  his 
eye  as  he  crowds  the  miserable  dormouse  into 
the  teapot.   Oh,  what  a  mad  book  it  is!  ... 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  Sept.,  1869. 
I  have  commenced  my  school,  been  run 
ning  a  week.     "Central  High  School."    120 
scholars:    2    lady    assistants.     Latin,    Greek, 


126  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

astronomy,  music,  philosophy,  physical  geog 
raphy,  chemistry,  etc.,  tapering  down  to 
infantry,  under  the  assistants  fresh  from  the 
swaddling  clothes  of  the  intermediate  and 
primary  schools.  I  am  "superintendent  of 
schools,"  so  my  cares  are  many,  as  there  are 
four  primaries  besides  my  own  big  school. 
So  that's  "what  I  am  going  to  do  next.".  .  . 

If ,  or  any  other  very  near-sighted 

scum-skimmer,  gives  me  any  dabs  that  are 
good  for  anything  to  me,  send  me  a  copy, 
please.  But  otherwise,  abuse  is  a  mere  nurse 
of  unprofitable  egotism.  I  don't  mean  to  care 
whether  any  one  thinks  I  can  write  well  or  ill, 
so  long  as  I  can  teach  a  good  school.  .  .  . 

I  am  very  busy,  as  I  said.  Plenty  of  time  to 
have  thoughts  of  my  friends,  as  you  know  in  your 
own  case. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Nov.  7,  '69. 
...  I  am  tugging  away  at  my  school,  and 
think  I  did  well  enough  in  staying  here;  though 
the  work  is  almost  too  much  for  me.  I  can  see 
enough,  every  day,  for  about  three  like  me  to 
do.  Very  likely  a  larger  pattern  than  me  might 
get  through  the  whole  of  it,  but  I  have  to  leave 
lots  of  things  undone.  I  will  enclose  one  of  our 
blank  reports,  to  show  you  how  we  have  to  be 
school  and  college  in  one;  for  but  few  of  our 
120  scholars  can  be  got  into  college,  ever,  and 


SETTLING   DOWN  127 

so  must  be  fed  all  their  little  stomachs  can 
possibly  digest,  here  and  now. 

In  one  sense  a  man  is  an  empty  windbag 
who  pretends  to  teach  all  manner  of  things 
without  any  thorough  or  even  decent  prepara 
tion;  yet  it  is  better,  is  n't  it?  that  they  should 
get  some  little  inkling  of  how  much  there  is  to 
be  learned,  than  turned  off  on  a  light  lunch  of 
arithmetic  and  orthography. 

Winter  has  come,  and  I  don't  scruple  to 
shake  my  puny  fist  in  his  hoary  face  and  call 
him  bad  names.  My  voice  is  still  for  spring.  .  . . 

The  grumbling  of  these  months  is  of  a 
healthy  tone  —  that  of  a  man  who  has  so  much 
to  do  that  the  time  fails  him. 

Dec.,  '69. 

More  to  do  every  day  and  night  than  I  can 
find  minutes  and  spinal  column  for.  Com 
fortably  off  enough  except  for  a  thousand  sub 
jects  to  investigate  and  questions  to  be  settled 
and  no  hour  for  them.  I  am  forced  to  be 
occupied  with  details  .  .  .  yet  chafed  at  the 
unsettled  state  of  these  confounded  general 
principles. 

.  .  .  Well,  I  suppose  't  is  a  good  deal  illu 
sion,  these  fine  ideas  of  what  we'd  do  if  some 
thing  was  n't  just  as  it  is.  Blessed  is  he  that 
wants  things  to  be  as  he  has  'em.  But  where 
is  the  man? 


128  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

The  work  in  Ohio  was  absorbing,  but  hardly 
satisfying.  Soon  there  came  a  call  from  Cali 
fornia  —  from  the  high  school  at  Oakland 
where  Sill  had  left  warm  friends  from  his  earlier 
visit:  — 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  OHIO, 
Jan.  23,  1870. 

DEAR  CHIEF, — I  am  very  glad  to  have  you 
writing  to  me  again  about  the  Oakland  matter, 
chiefly  because  it  continues  to  let  me  know  that 
you  would  like  to  have  me  come  back  there 
among  you.  I  am  queer,  I'm  afraid,  about  my 
way  of  looking  (or  not  looking)  at  future  plans. 
Whether  it  springs  most  from  faith,  or  a  Mus 
sulman  sort  of  "fatality"  despair  of  individual 
planning  and  trying,  I  let  the  future  alone  more 
than  most  seem  to :  perhaps  too  much.  Except 
as  it  affects  the  convenience  of  others  who  may 
hinge  more  or  less  on  our  edges,  I  don't  see 
much  advantage  in  taking  thought  far  ahead, 
especially  as  to  details. 

I  would  like  to  have  a  window  opened 
through  which  I  might  get  a  draft  of  fresh  com 
munion  with  the  lives  of  you  folks  there.  .  .  . 
Strange  that  on  such  a  great  planet,  alive  with 
us,  our  thoughts  and  loves  and  sympathies 
should  just  cluster  a  half-dozen  here  and  a 
half-dozen  there,  and  count  all  the  "world,"  so 
far  as  we  care,  on  our  fingers. 


SETTLING   DOWN  129 

I  suppose  we  are  reading  the  same  tele 
graphic  news,  every  day,  and  hearing  the  same 
topics  talked,  and  the  wives  are  playing  the 
identical  pieces  on  the  pretty-much-identical 
pianos  (only  ours  is  out  of  tune  at  present)  and 
so  on.  ... 

With  the  return  of  summer  and  its  compara 
tive  leisure,  we  find  our  poet  again  communing 
with  himself:  — 

June,  1870. 

Once  in  a  while  there  seems  to  come  a  sort 
of  eddy  in  the  rush  of  my  thoughts  about  my 
school,  which  leaves  me  to  think  of  things  in 
general,  the  future,  etc.  Such  an  one  appears  to 
have  come  this  Sunday  morning,  perhaps  in 
compensation  for  a  night  full  of  feverish  dreams 
about  classes  and  plans  for  scholars.  And  my 
eyes  turn,  first  thing,  of  course,  out  your  way; 
and  the  question  is,  can  I  manage  it  to  come 
there?  .  .  . 

I  wish,  if  you  get  time  to  write  me  "so  large 
a  letter  with  your  own  hand  "as  I  hope,  you 
would  put  in  a  word  or  two  on  your  religious 
status  nowadays.  We  have  both  been  thinking, 
reading,  etc.,  since  a  word  has  been  said.  For 
my  part  I  long  to  "fall  in"  with  somebody. 
This  picket  duty  is  monotonous.  I  hanker  after 
a  shoulder  on  this  side  and  the  other.  I  can't 
agree  in  belief  (or  expressed  belief  —  Lord 


130  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

knows  what  the  villains  really  think,  at  home) 
with  the  "  Christian  "  people,  nor  in  spirit  with 
the  Radicals,  etc.  ...  Many,  here  and  there, 
must  be  living  the  right  way,  doing  their  best, 
hearty  souls,  and  I  'd  like  to  go  'round  the  world 
for  the  next  year  and  take  tea  with  them  in 
succession.  Would  n't  you? 

This  chapter,  in  which  Sill  finds  himself  and 
actually  takes  up  his  livelihood,  may  be  very 
appropriately  closed  with  a  fragment  wherein 
he  chews  the  cud  of  bitter  and  sweet  reflection 
and  comes  to  a  wholly  false  conclusion :  — 

Dec.,  1870. 

If  I  were  to  commence  any  prose,  for  sample, 
I  believe  I  would  take  up  and  recount  the  things 
that  befell  a  man  who  had  been  so  unfortunate 
as  to  inspire  his  friends,  early  in  life,  with  great 
expectations  of  him.  What  woes  it  caused  him 
and  them,  when  they  repeatedly  touched  him 
off  as  a  rocket,  and  he  infallibly  came  down  like 
a  stick.  I  suppose  that  if  taken  young  and 
trained  right  I  might  have  made  a  writer;  but 
the  training  has  certainly  been  wanting.  I  have 
got  myself,  by  dint  of  nearly  killing  labor,  into 
the  shape  of  an  almost  tolerable  schoolmaster, 
but  higher  than  that  I  never  shall  get,  till  the 
resurrection. 


VI 

TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA 

i  -S  -. 

THE  second  sojourn  in  California,  covering 
the  twelve  years  from  1871  to  1883,  formed  the 
largest  block  in  the  structure  of  Sill's  life.  The 
invitation  foreshadowed  in  the  letter  from  Mr. 
Palmer  came,  and  was  accepted,  and  in  1871 
Sill  began  his  work  as  teacher  of  English  in  the 
high  school  at  Oakland,  across  the  bay  from 
San  Francisco.  There  he  taught  until  1874, 
when  he  accepted  the  chair  of  English  in  the 
University  of  California  at  Berkeley,  a  neigh 
boring  suburb  of  San  Francisco. 

Sill  was  chosen  Professor  of  English  at  the 
young  university  —  then  being  set  on  its  feet 
by  Daniel  C.  Oilman,  who  was  drawn  away  not 
long  thereafter  to  organize  Johns  Hopkins,  — 
and  so  had  the  rare  distinction  of  laying  the 
foundations  of  two  American  universities 
both  of  which  have  already  grown  great.  The 
acquaintance  between  Sill  and  Oilman  grew 
into  a  friendship  which  lasted  until  Sill's  un 
timely  death. 

The  three  years  at  Oakland  were  crowded 
with  work  —  the  absorbing,  consuming  work 
which  teaching  becomes  to  the  enthusiast  like 


132  EDWAED  ROWLAND  SILL 

Sill.  So  he  wrote  little  poetry  and  few  letters, 
and  these  chiefly  about  problems  connected 
with  his  teaching.  Such  is  one  to  his  classmate 
Williams  at  New  Haven:  — 

OAKLAND,  CAL.,  Oct.  18, 1871. 

Is  there  any  tendency  shown  in  Yale  to 
lessen  the  amount  of  Greek  required  for  ad 
mission,  or  any  talk  of  teaching  that  language, 
in  connection  with  comparative  philology  (or 
some  hints  at  it)  by  lectures  to  juniors  and 
seniors? 

There  is  a  growing  idea  out  here  that  such 
a  change  should  be  made.  I  don't  like  to  leave 
off  my  Greek  (I  have  learned  it,  since  leaving 
college,  and  taught  it),  but  I've  a  suspicion 
that  the  reformers  are  right  in  claiming  that 
more  might  be  done  at  it  by  the  right  sort  of 
lectures  than  by  the  excessive  cramming  of  the 
raw  material  of  Greek  culture  as  at  present. 

I  think  the  university  here  would  change,  if 
it  got  any  aid  and  comfort  from  the  Eastern 
sisters.  Will  it  get  it?  If  not,  I  must  make  our 
high  school  more  Greekish,  in  the  teeth  of  its 
principal  and  public  opinion.  Latin  they  take 
pretty  easily,  but  are  restive  under  Bouheva 
or  Avw  ("Woman's  Greek,  without  the  ac 
cents"). 

The  question  is,  would  n't  it  have  been  bet 
ter  for  you  and  me  to  have  had  German  and 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  133 

French  before  College,  than  lectures  on  Greek 
culture,  etc.,  with  general  language,  during 
college?  .  .  . 

The  return  to  California  meant  a  renewal 
of  old  friendships  and  a  revival  of  his  old  love 
for  that  marvellous  country  which  counts  him 
among  its  prophets.  Glimpses  of  it  run  through 
his  poems,  early  and  late.  He  had  sung  it  in 
his  poem,  always  a  favorite  with  Californians, 
"Man  the  Spirit,"  written  in  1865:  - 

"In  this  fair  land,  whose  fields  lie  robed  in  bloom, 
A  living  poem  bound  in  blue  and  gold; 
With  azure  flowers  like  little  specks  of  sky 
Fallen,  tangled  in  the  dew-drops,  to  the  grass, 
And  orange  ones  —  as  if  the  wealth  below 
Had  blossomed  up  in  beaten  flakes  of  gold." 

And  again  in  "The  Hermitage":  — 

"The  land  where  summers  never  cease 
Their  sunny  psalm  of  light  and  peace; 
Whose  moonlight,  poured  for  years  untold, 
Has  drifted  down  in  dust  of  gold : 
Whose  morning  splendors,  fallen  in  showers, 
Leave  ceaseless  sunrise  in  the  flowers." 

Oakland,  where  now  he  went  to  live,  and 
the  bay  drew  his  tribute  again  and  again:  — 

"Beyond,  long  curves  of  little  shallow  waves 
Creep,  tremulous  with  ripples,  to  the  shore 
Till  the  whole  bay  seems  slowly  sliding  in, 
With  edge  of  snow  that  melts  against  the  sand." 

The  almost  constant  bloom  and  incredible 


134  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

profusion  of  flowers  stirred  his  fancy.  In  "April 
in  Oakland"  he  writes:  - 

"Was  there  last  night  a  snow-storm 
So  thick  the  orchards  stand 
With  drift  on  drift  of  blossom-flakes 
Whitening  all  the  land." 

And  in  "The  Hermitage":  - 

"An  April,  fairer  than  the  Atlantic  June, 
Whose  calendar  of  perfect  days  was  kept 
By  daily  blossoming  of  some  new  flower." 

An  impression  naturally  deepened  by  a  re 
turn  to  Eastern  winter :  - 

"Ah,  give  me  back  the  clime  I  know, 
Where  all  the  year  geraniums  blow, 
And  hyacinth  buds  bloom  white  for  snow." 

Sill's  three  years  at  Oakland  in  the  high 
school  were  years  of  intense  toil  —  a  sort  of 
sacrificial  service  as  if  he  would  spend  himself 
upon  this  task  of  teaching  leaving  no  sinew 
unstrained. 

His  reward  was  as  much  in  the  moral  as  in 
the  intellectual  quickening  he  communicated 
to  his  students.  One  of  his  students,  Miss 
Millicent  Shinn,  has  left  a  record  of  the  effect 
of  his  teaching;  and  that  this  was  no  isolated 
case,  the  outpouring  of  similar  testimony  at 
the  Memorial  Meeting  in  1887  abundantly 
showed :  - 

"It  was  as  if  he  had  carried  into  the  school 
room  the  same  ideals  that  would  have  taken 


EDWARD    R.    SILL,    1872 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  135 

him  into  the  pulpit.  He  was  full  of  it,  —  at 
every  turn  in  the  day's  work  he  referred  every 
thing  to  ideal  standards,  —  duty,  and  eternity, 
and  man's  chief  end.  It  was  like  having  a  very 
religious  person  teaching  children,  except  that 
having  no  stable  religious  creed,  he  gave  to  all 
he  said  of  ideal  aims  the  spontaneity  and  ardor 
of  original  feelings,  experiences  wrought  out 
on  his  own  lines.  A  negligent  lesson  was  apt 
to  be  rebuked  with  reminders  (evidently  fully 
felt)  that  we  were  forming  our  characters,  and 
perhaps  for  more  than  this  life:  'You  are  work 
ing  out  your  eternal  destinies  now,'  he  would 
say.  He  filled  the  schoolroom  with  the  ardor 
and  poetic  elevation  of  the  idea  of  Duty  as  in 
Wordsworth's  ode,  —  and  his  rigid  applica 
tions  of  it  made  it  no  mere  poetry  to  us, 
either,  but  a  'stern  daughter  of  the  Voice  of 
God,'  too. 

"He  was  fond  of  bringing  any  great  idea,  all 
his  own  chief  topics  of  spiritual  meditation,  to 
the  schoolroom.  The  object  of  human  exist 
ence,  the  summum  bonum,  the  chief  end  of 
man,  the  Good,  the  True,  and  the  Beautiful, 
the  service  of  humanity,  the  ideals  of  mediaBval 
chivalry,  of  Hale's  Ten  Times  One,  were  every 
day  subjects  to  us." 

From  Miss  Shinn  also  I  have  these  jottings 
on  Sill's  personal  relations  with  his  students: 
"He  was  in  the  habit  of  having  little  talks  with 


136  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

pupils,  —  at  recess,  or  at  odd  minutes  in  school; 
and  often  asked  them  to  come  to  his  house  for 
this  or  that,  —  to  get  a  book,  try  a  piece  of 
music  with  Mrs.  Sill,  etc.;  and  most  of  them 
thought,  when  they  found  a  new  flower  or  bug, 
or  a  striking  passage  in  a  book,  that  they  must 
needs  take  it  to  show  him.  He  concerned  him 
self  about  our  outside  affairs,  —  music-lessons, 
eye-strain,  etc.  Yet  he  was  not  the  sort  of 
teacher  who  goes  out  and  plays  with  the  boys, 
helps  in  the  organization  of  clubs,  etc.  He  al 
ways,  with  all  his  easy  freedom  of  manner, 
kept  a  distance,  and  an  authority.  He  en 
couraged  us  to  talk  freely,  to  argue  back  and 
criticise,  and  would  take  more  of  that  than  any 
teacher  I  ever  knew;  but  he  drew  strict  lines, 
and  never  permitted  an  impertinence,  never 
laughed  with  the  boys  good-naturedly  in  a  joke 
against  himself  (which,  indeed,  they  scarcely 
ventured  upon) ;  and  in  any  real  case  of  discip 
line,  his  voice  was  always  for  severity.  He  was 
not  ordinarily  sarcastic  in  the  schoolroom;  but 
either  pert  smartness  or  deliberate  neglect  of 
a  duty  would  bring  a  crushing  contempt  into 
his  manner  and  speech  sometimes,  —  more  his 
manner  than  his  speech,  for  I  do  not  recall 
especially  sharp  things  that  he  said.  He  would 
not  sit  and  labor  through  an  ill-learned  lesson; 
he  would  throw  down  the  book  contemptuously 
and  refuse  to  hear  it.  He  explained  much  less 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  137 

than  teachers  I  see  nowadays,  and  expected  us 
to  dig  out  most  of  our  difficulties  for  ourselves. 
For  dishonesty  he  had  no  mercy,  but  that  was 
practically  unknown  in  the  school  in  his  day." 

"Once,"  Miss  Shinn  adds,  "he  and  Mrs.  Sill 
took  me  with  them  to  hear  Booth  and  McCul- 
lough  in  'Lear'  -  -my  first  play:  and  after  it 
was  over  Mr.  Sill  asked  me  if  I  wanted  to  cry 
anywhere:  I  said  I  did  very  much  when  Lear 
recognized  Cordelia.  He  said,  'That  was  the 
place  where  I  had  to  look  away  and  begin  study 
ing  my  neighbors'  behavior  very  hard."1 

In  a  letter  of  Professor  Royce,  who  was  Sill's 
assistant  in  the  Department  of  English  at  the 
University,  there  is  a  bit  of  reminiscence  which 
illustrates  the  spirit  Sill  brought  to  his  teach 
ing:— 

"Once  I  found  him  very  gloomy.  His  work 
at  Berkeley  was  wearing  him  out,  and  certain 
of  his  worst  pupils,  to  whose  interests  he  had 
been  showing  his  usual  unsparing  devotion, 
had  just  been  paining  him  by  bitter  speeches 
and  cruel  misunderstandings.  I  gossiped  on 
about  the  affair  to  him,  in  an  irresponsible 
way,  of  course,  until  among  other  things  I  said : 
'You  see,  Sill,  all  this  comes  from  your  deter 
mined  fashion  of  casting  pearls  before  swine. 
Why  will  you  always  do  it?'  'Ah,  Royce,'  he 
responded,  with  a  perfectly  simple  and  calm 
veracity  in  his  gentle  voice,  'you  never  know 


138  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

in  this  world  whether  you  were  really  casting 
pearls  at  all  until  you  feel  the  tusks. ": 

But  no  better  expression  of  Sill's  ideal  in 
teaching  can,  I  fancy,  be  found  than  the  un 
published  notes  of  a  talk  to  his  high  school 
class  shortly  before  leaving  Oakland  to  take  the 
post  at  the  university.  It  came  to  me  in  pencil, 
having  been  found  after  his  death  among  his 
papers,  probably  preserved  as  a  memento :  — 

"I  cannot  feel  that  this  is  a  common  time. 
Either  because  of  the  direction  my  own  thoughts 
and  feelings  have  lately  taken,  in  attempting  to 
guide  yours,  or  the  thoughts  I  have  had  about 
each  one  of  you,  or  the  thoughts  you  your 
selves  have  expressed,  or  a  something  which 
I  have  seen  shadowed  forth  on  your  faces,  or 
glimmering  in  your  eyes  from  time  to  time 
lately  —  this  or  something  else  has  filled  me 
with  the  sense  of  an  unusual  potency  and 
import  in  this  particular  point  of  your  lives. 
When  I  look  at  you,  it  is  as  if  I  looked  out  on 
the  dim,  misty  spaces  of  the  dawn  of  a  new 
creation,  and  as  if  I  saw  vague  shapes  of  un 
known  possibilities  forming  and  dissolving 
and  re-forming  before  me,  and  as  if  as  of  old  the 
spirit  of  God  were  moving  on  the  face  of  the 
waters.  The  air  seems  astir  with  prophetic  in 
timations.  It  is  as  if  I  heard  the  voices  of 
awakening  souls  questioning  the  universe  in 
which  they  have  just  awakened,  questioning 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  139 

themselves,  turning  from  their  past  with  con 
tempt,  or  sorrow,  or  anger,  or  ridicule,  or  pity 
—  turning  to  their  future  with  hope,  or  wonder, 
or  growing  purpose. 

"It  may  be  only  my  imagination:  but  it 
seems  to  me  the  whole  air  is  electrical  with  it 
lately  —  with  this  casting-off  of  old  chrysalis 
husks,  and  the  awakening  rhythm  of  spiritual 
wings. 

"Let  us  consider  for  a  little,  what  it  is  we  are 
doing,  or  what  we  may  do,  if  we  will. 

"There  are  three  most  momentous  events 
that  come  in  most  people's  lives :  the  birth  into 
this  mystery  of  life,  out  of  that  other  preceding 
mystery,  of  which  we  have  not  even  a  gleam: 
the  birth  out  of  this  life,  into  whatever  mystery 
is  to  come:  and  between  them,  at  some  point, 
that  time  —  that  day  —  that  morning  or  that 
mid-day  —  or  evening  —  when  the  soul  makes 
its  one  final  irrevocable  choice  of  what  its  life 
and  what  itself  shall  be. 

"I  do  not  think  one  always  knows,  at  the 
time,  what  is  being  decided,  or  what  has  been 
decided.  It  may  come  casually,  in  some  quiet 
moment  of  watching  a  cloud,  or  a  bird,  or  a 
star  —  it  may  come  after  a  strong  logical 
wrestling  between  duty  and  desire  —  it  may 
come  slowly,  day  after  day,  as  the  good  green 
grass  in  spring,  or  it  may  come  like  a  thunder- 
flash  out  of  a  passionate  storm  of  tears  and 


140  EDWARD  ROWLAND]  SILL 

prayer  —  but  come  it  will,  to  most  of  us.  Before 
it,  our  days  are  aimless,  useless,  unsatisfactory, 
if  not  worse  —  after  it,  we  have  a  motive  for 
what  we  do,  and  a  satisfaction  in  what  is  done. 
Before  it,  the  soul's  flight  is  only  the  haphazard 
fluttering  of  an  insect,  —  afterward,  it  is  the 
swift,  sure  flight  of  the  bird,  that  seeks  its  own 
tree-top  and  sings  upon  its  way. 

"Most  men  have  no  ruling  purpose.  It  may 
be  so  with  some  of  you,  but  with  some  I  know 
it  is  not  true.  Individually,  in  your  own 
secret  souls,  I  believe  you  have  made  choices 
that  if  carried  out  will  blossom  and  bear  fruit 
in  good  lives.  But  it  is  not  quite  enough  that 
this  is  true  of  us  separately  and  secretly:  I 
wish  we  might  in  some  way  be  more  than  a 
group  of  separate,  self-contained  individuals 
in  this.  I  cannot  ask  you  to  talk  much  about 
this,  in  any  personal  way.  There  is  an  instinc 
tive  delicacy  that  forbids  it.  But  I  wish  that 
by  some  sudden  revelation  of  each  self  to  each 
other,  each  might  know  that  every  one  of 
us  was  from  this  time  forth  devoted  to  a  high 
ideal.  I  do  not  believe  much  in  vows,  or  excited 
avowals  —  but  I  wish  that  in  some  sudden 
flash  of  insight,  some  answering  eye-glance  of 
mutual  understanding,  each  might  say  in  his 
heart  —  'Here  are  others,  who,  like  me,  are 
disgusted  and  ashamed  with  what  they  have 
been,  have  done,  have  left  undone,  and  who, 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  141 

like  me,  are  steadying  themselves  among  the 
strong  waves  of  circumstance,  like  ships  in  a 
pent  sea,  and  steering  their  course  by  the  same 
stars  that  I,  too,  look  up  to.'  And  we  all  belong 
to  a  larger  company  of  other  times  and  places. 
Many  have  striven  to  attain  ideals;  they  are 
of  many  different  ages  and  climes.  The  com 
pany  of  the  heroic  souls  of  history  are  the  real 
Round  Table,  and  their  king  is  that  blameless 
man  to  whose  law  of  love  they  have  all,  in  one 
way  or  another,  been  loyal.  And  that  Round 
Table,  why  may  we  not  all  join? 

"The  old  world  goes  on,  day  after  day;  with 
much  mixture  of  toil  and  suffering  and  injus 
tice  and  foolishness  in  it.  Life  in  it  does  n't 
seem  a  very  great  or  valuable  affair.  No  wonder 
so  many  throw  it  away,  not  caring  to  live  out 
even  the  few  winters  and  summers  that  might 
be  allotted  to  them.  But  it  often  seems  to  me 
it  might  be  such  a  glorious  old  world  if  some  of 
us  would  conspire  together  to  make  it  so.  What 
a  beautiful  earth  it  is!  What  splendor  in  the 
mornings  of  it  —  the  sunrises,  the  clearings 
away  after  rain,  the  moonrises,  the  superb  dis 
tances,  the  hill  colors,  the  elastic  spring  of  mus 
cular  strength,  the  power  of  thinking,  of  re 
membering,  the  confidence  we  can  put  in  each 
other,  the  help  and  services  we  can  render 
each  other,  the  love  we  can  give,  and  get.  —  It 
seems  a  splendid  earth  to  live  on.  If  only  we 


142  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

always  lived  up  to  the  level  of  our  best  mo 
ments  ! 

"How  are  we  to  do  this?  I  have  no  revela 
tion  to  give,  no  secret  wisdom,  in  answer  to 
this.  I  can  only  give  expression,  as  one  of  you, 
to  the  question.  But  there  are  some  things  I 
feel  sure  would  help  us,  and  one  is,  let  us  get 
help  from  other  lives.  We  can  find  out  how 
others  have  lived,  and  what  they  have  tried  to 
do,  and  how  they  have  succeeded.  These  people 
of  whom  we  read  in  books  have  been,  after  all, 
just  like  us.  The  wiser  people  get,  the  more  they 
say  they  discover  how  much  they  are  like  every 
one  else.  The  child  thinks  nobody  ever  was  like 
him  —  he  looks  out  on  other  people,  and  es 
pecially  on  people  of  past  times,  as  being  a  dif 
ferent  sort  of  creatures.  Nobody  ever  had  just 
his  feelings,  or  just  his  expectations.  By  and 
by  he  discovers  that  each  child  of  them  all  has 
had  just  that  thought  about  the  rest.  It  is 
likely  that  such  a  person  as  Abraham  Lincoln, 
for  instance,  or  Mrs.  Browning,  or  Socrates, 
had  at  one  time  or  another  every  single  thought 
and  every  single  mood  and  feeling,  that  you 
have  had.  It  is  probable  that  you  have  never 
had  an  emotion,  a  desire,  a  temptation,  a  wish, 
which  has  not  been  in  each  other  mind  here. 
How  else  could  we  understand  each  other? 
Let  us  draw  what  inspiration  we  can,  then, 
from  the  man  and  woman  —  the  immortal  girls 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  143 

and  boys,  that  have  trodden  these  earth-ways 
before  us.     When  you  look  at  Sirius,  or  the 
Pleiades,  or  the  Great  Dipper  to-night,  try  to 
think  how  those  other  souls  have  age  after 
age  looked  up  at  those  same  twinkling  lights, 
and  had  the  same  thought,  or  the  same  ques 
tion,  or  the  same  vacancy,  in  their  human 
heart  as  they  looked  with  just  such  eyes,  and 
turned  away  with  just  such  footsteps  as  yours. 
"And  one  more  suggestion;  if  we  are  so  much 
alike,  let  us  help  each  other.    Don't  let  us  be 
ashamed  of  what  is  best  in  us.   Let  us  not  any 
longer  pretend  we  are  superficial  and  shallow 
all  the  time.   If  we  have  feelings  and  thoughts 
on  other  subjects  than  the  trifles  we  generally 
chat  about,  let  us  frankly  speak  them  out.  The 
wisest  and  profoundest  people,  when  we  come 
to  learn  about  them,  seem  to  talk  most  freely 
about  beauty,  and  truth,  and  love,  and  earnest 
things.    It  is  only  children  and  childish  people 
who  are  afraid  or  ashamed  to  be  themselves. 
The  telegraph  brought  us  yesterday  the  last 
conversation  that  Sumner  had  with  the  emi 
nent  men,  lawyers  and  statesmen  and  judges, 
that  were  with  him;  and  one  of  the  last  things 
he  said  was,  'Tell  Emerson  that  I  love  and 
revere  him/ 

"Which  of  you  would  feel  free  to  write  the 
same  of  anybody  or  anything  and  read  it  here? 
Yet  what  is  it  but  a  childish  falling-in  with 


144  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

shallow  custom  of  shallow  people  that  should 
prevent. 

"Am  I  mistaken,  or  has  not  the  time  come 
when  we  are  talking  to  ourselves,  and  do  not 
care  either  if  we  say  it  aloud,  —  saying:  'Soul 
of  mine,  you  have  not  been  all  that  you  might. 
You  have  neither  done  for  yourself,  nor  for 
others,  what  you  might  yet  do,  if  you  would. 
You  have  kept  your  best  feelings  hidden.  You 
have  like  a  coward  showed  of  yourself  only 
what  others  were  showing  of  themselves  and 
done  only  what  others  expected  of  you.  You 
have  been  cowardly,  and  foolish,  and  worth 
less  and  conceited.  Rise  up,  and  from  this 
hour  live  out  your  true  self,  modestly,  courage 
ously  —  and  let  this  base,  timid,  indolent,  self 
ish  body  in  which  you  live,  be  not  your  mas 
ter,  but  your  loyal  servant  for  all  noble  ends.' 

"Some  such  thing  as  this  I  believe  every  one 
of  these  greater  souls  of  whom  we  read  must 
have  thought,  at  some  such  hour  as  this.  There 
must  have  been  in  the  lives  of  Socrates  and  Lin 
coln  and  Washington,  probably  in  their  boy 
hood,  a  decisive  hour,  when  from  that  time  on 
they  might  have  been  only  common  creatures. 
But  the  heroic  soul  rose  in  them  equal  to  the 
hour,  and  their  lives  became  immortal  types  of 
goodness  and  greatness. 

"I  suggest  to  you  as  the  best  motive  I  can 
find :  a  life  for  the  service  of  others.  I  offer  you 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  145 

the  motto  which  a  Saxon  knight  of  old  time 
used  to  bear  on  his  shield,  'Ich  Dien' —  I 


serve." 


The  talk,  which  was  given  in  classroom, 
called  forth  various  responses  in  letters  and 
compositions  and  to  at  least  one  of  them  Sill 
wrote  a  reply :  — 

OAKLAND,  March  23,  '74. 
MONDAY  NOON. 

DEAR  MILLIE,  —  Then,  too,  if  we  should 
decide  on  service  as  the  principal  thing,  the 
question  arises:  of  what  sort?  Shall  it  be  like 
the  washing  of  the  feet,  or  the  dying  on  the 
cross?  That  is,  —  the  small  common  helpful 
nesses  and  services  chiefly,  or  some  special 
great  absorbing  service.  Shall  we  let  our  lives 
run  along  in  apparent  insignificance,  in  chan 
nels  others  dig  for  them,  —  mere  irrigating 
trenches,  —  or  cut  their  own  channels,  under 
guidance  of  some  idea  of  our  own  —  great  if 
possible,  good  certainly,  and  at  least  our  own. 
.  .  .  Somebody  wrote  to  me,  "  Why  don't  you 
stop  trying  to  make  something  of  other  people, 
and  make  something  of  yourself?"  Which  will 
you  do?  They  are  hardly  compatible.  Sup 
posing  the  same  amount  of  good  to  others  from 
either  way,  is  there  not  an  additional  grain  of 
good  in  the  greater  abnegation  of  self  involved 
in  the  washing  the  feet  theory? 

May  one  not  look  at  it  in  this  way :  to  be  all 


146  EDWAKD  ROWLAND  SILL 

we  might  includes  "  character "  as  perhaps  its 
highest  part  (considered  in  the  light  of  immor 
tality,  as  security  for  gains  of  all  sorts  in  the 
future:  as  basis  therefor,  and  essential  condi 
tion  :  certainly  the  highest  part) :  now  it  is  so 
necessary  to  the  highest  character  to  serve 
others:  to  bear  one's  cross,  as  well  as  to  be 
lifted  up  on  it:  to  renounce,  for  others'  sake: 
that  the  gain  is  always  more  than  the  loss,  even 
if  we  gave  up  ten  years  of  study  and  thought  to 
tend  some  bed-ridden  cripple,  whose  highest 
want  seemed  only  a  cool  cup  of  water  now  and 
then. 

Well,  one  thing  is  certain:  we  can  seek  the 
highest  and  best  and  truest  we  know:  under 
guidance  of  half  a  dozen  good  motives:  no 
matter  if  they  be  inextricably  mixed;  and  no 
irreparable  loss  if  even  some  bad  ones  insist  on 
mixing  in  with  them. 

Is  it  certain  that  the  reason  is  in  all  ways 
higher  than  the  emotions?  Perhaps  they  can 
not  be  compared  wisely :  any  more  than  a  yard 
and  a  color.  Love  seems  to  me  a  pretty  high 
thing.  I  suspect  that  to  say  a  certain  motive  is 
based  on  love,  is  not  saying  it  is  any  lower  than 
one  based  on  logic. 

As  Mr.  says,  one  would  n't  like  to 

have  to  choose  whether  he  would  prefer  to  have 
the  oxygen  or  the  nitrogen  taken  out  of  his 
atmosphere. 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  147 

We  get  a  prejudice  against  the  emotions, 
when  we  see  them  acting  regardless  of  reason; 
and  against  calculation,  when  it  is  cold  and 
emotionless.  How  if  they  both  go  streaming  in 
one  current,  like  the  light  and  the  air? 

I  like  it  that  there  are  some  subjects  on 
which,  when  one  has  said  anything,  he  has 
after  all  said  nothing  at  all. 

The  Oakland  period  can  perhaps  hardly  be 
better  closed  than  by  another  reminiscence  of 
Miss  Shinn  to  whom  the  record  of  those  years 
owes  so  much :  — 

"When  I  was  a  schoolgirl,  my  mother 
was  speaking  somewhat  anxiously  of  the  care 
needed  in  environing  young  people;  and  Mr. 
Sill  said,  'Well,  I  suppose  so;  yet  I  often  think 
that  a  young  soul,  if  it  is  only  a  truthful  soul, 
might  safely  enough  be  tossed  off  anywhere  in 
the  universe,  —  sent  off  at  a  tangent  into  space, 
—  and  will  come  out  all  right.'  -  'I  should 
want  to  know  what  a  young  soul  was  going  to 
come  into  contact  with,  before  I  sent  it  spin 
ning  off  that  way,  if  it  was  any  one  dear  to  me,' 
said  my  mother,  a  little  concerned.  —  'Come 
in  contact  with  God's  good  worlds,  anyhow,* 
said  Mr.  Sill,  dropping  the  subject  by  rising  to 
move  about,  as  he  often  did.  I  do  not  know 
quite  how  much  he  meant  by  the  phrase;  per 
haps  only  to  avoid  further  pressing  of  the 


148  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

point;  but  it  struck  me  at  sixteen  as  poetic  and 
lofty,  and  gave  me  a  sort  of  feeling  of  safety 
and  intellectual  courage." 


THE   UNIVERSITY 

Sill  began  his  work  as  Professor  of  English  in 
the  University  of  California  in  1875,  when  he 
was  thirty-four,  full  of  ardent  enthusiasm  and 
eagerness  to  teach.  It  was  a  moralizing,  New 
England,  proselyting  zeal  that  inspired  him  — 
akin  to  that  which  he  had  expressed  in  "Man 

the  Spirit":  — 

"Here 

Upon  a  coast  whose  calmer-blossoming  surf 
Beats  not  with  such  an  iron  clang  as  theirs, 
We  plant  the  Newer  England;  this  our  word, 
That  man  is  no  mere  spider-like  machine 
To  spin  out  webs  of  railroads  after  him 
In  all  earth's  corners,  nor  a  crafty  brain 
Made  to  knit  cunning  nets  of  politics 
Or  sharpen  down  to  insignificance 
On  the  grinding  wheels  of  business,  but  a  Soul, 
That  travelling  higher  worlds  in  upper  light 
Dips  down  through  bodily  contact  into  this." 

Need  enough  there  was  of  it;  for  California 
was  "practical,"  materialistic,  Philistine.  Sill 
did  what  he  could  to  stem  the  tide,  and  while 
he  was  at  the  university,  letters  never  lacked  a 
champion  nor  the  life  of  the  spirit  an  exponent. 
Some  there  will  be  to  regret  that  he  did  not 
give  himself  wholly  to  letters,  leaving  pedagogy 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  149 

to  others.  He  was,  of  course,  first  and  last  a 
man  of  letters,  and  say  as  loud  and  often  as  he 
liked  that  he  was  "only  a  school  teacher  who 
occasionally  wrote  verses,"  he  probably  knew 
in  his  moments  of  insight  that  the  pen  was  his 
true  weapon  and  the  written  word  his  deed.  So 
long  as  he  was  teaching,  however,  he  gave  him 
self  manfully  to  his  teaching,  writing  but  little 
poetry  and  very  few  letters  except  to  students 
either  in  tutelage  or  out  of  the  academic  nest  and 
themselves  grappling  with  the  teacher's  task. 

The  letters  and  fragments  of  letters  which 
follow  are  taken  from  the  "Memorial  Volume  " 
issued  in  California  in  1887,  the  originals  no 
longer  obtainable  and  the  very  names  of  the 
recipients  unknown  for  the  most  part.  Full  of 
preaching  they  are.  "We  plant  the  Newer 
England!" 

"I  hope  you  are  not  trying  to  do  any  brain- 
work.  Let  your  brains  vegetate  and  make  new 
growth  undisturbed,  for  next  term !  —  there 's 
so  much  I  shall  ask  you  to  do.  Mind  you,  I 
know  about  brains.  The  thing  you  want  now 
till  term  opens  is  absolute  stupidity,  and  great 
activity  in  the  digestive  apparatus.  Horrid, 
is  n't  it!  Item,  so  much  carbon;  item,  so  much 
nitrogen:  'five  forms  of  protoplasm':  muscular 
exercise  to  distribute  them  well  about  the  tis 
sues.  Then,  next  term,  we  will  enter  upon  our 


150  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

birthright  as  'heirs  of  all  the  ages'  and  the  *  long 
result  of  time.'" 


"Your  question  of  26th  May  was  too  good  a 
one  to  leave  so  long  unanswered.  It  was  not 
left  as  being  too  hard  to  answer,  but  I  have 
been  very  busy,  and  really  could  not  find  time 
to  settle  myself  to  say  anything  on  so  import 
ant  a  question  till  to-night,  and  now  it  must  be 
a  brief  note.  The  real  value  of  '  being  well  read ' 
seems  to  me  to  be  in  the  wider  and  truer  life  it 
gives  us.  By  'wider'  I  mean  that  our  thoughts 
and  feelings  and  purposes  are  more  complex 
and  more  consonant  with  the  complexity  and 
manifoldness  of  the  universe  we  live  in:  the 
microcosm  gets  a  little  —  even  if  a  very  little 
-  nearer  in  quality  and  quantity  to  the 
macrocosm.  The  crystal  leads  such  a  narrow 
life  —  just  along  one  little  line  —  a  single  law 
of  facet  and  angle:  the  plant  a  little  wider:  the 
fish  a  little  wider:  and  the  different  sorts  of 
people  widening  and  widening  out  in  their  inner 
activities  —  and  much  according  to  their  read 
ing  (since  living,  human  contact  is  not  possible, 
except  with  the  few  relatives  and  neighbors). 

"And  by  truer  life,  I  mean  truer  to  nature: 
more  as  we  were  meant  to  be:  the  inner  rela 
tions,  between  ideas,  corresponding  closer  to 
the  other  relations  —  or  'real'  relations  —  be 
tween  things.  These  real  thing-relations  are  in 

VV    aLi+f 


TEACHING   IN   CALIFORNIA  151 

fact  very  complex  and  vastly  inclusive:  so  must 
the  thoughts  and  feelings  be,  if  'true,'  or  truly 
correspondent  or  mirror-like  to  them. 

"I  don't  see  that  culture  (unless  you  spell  it 
wrong)  needs  —  or  tends  at  all  —  to  cut  one 
off  from  human  warmth.  Are  not  some  of  the 
*  best-read'  people  you  know  or  hear  of,  some 
of  the  broadest-hearted  also?  The  very  essence 
of  culture  is  shaking  off  the  nightmare  of  self- 
consciousness  and  self -absorption  and  attaining 
a  sort  of  Christian  Nirvana  —  lost  in  the  great 
whole  of  humanity:  thinking  of  others,  caring 
for  others,  admiring  and  loving  others. 

"I  should  like  to  have  you  write  me  more 
fully  about  it  sometime." 

"If  you  have  a  shadow  of  suspicion  that  your 
own  manner  .  .  .  may  be  at  fault  (or  at  misfor 
tune),  pray  endeavor  to  change  it.  We  must 
accommodate  ourselves  to  the  imperfect  na 
tures  of  people,  just  as  they  have  to  to  ours. 
No  man  can  be  just  his  natural,  unrestrained 
self,  without  impinging  too  much.  Angles  col 
lide  with  angles.  'Suspect  yourself  is  a  great 
aid  towards  getting  along  with  people.  It 's  the 
littleness  of  our  natures  that  lets  us  stand  on 
our  rights  so  much  as  we  constantly  do.  I  sup 
pose  the  great  men  stood  chiefly  on  their  duties, 
instead.  Et  ego  have  been  knocked  and  rubbed 
a  good  deal;  but  in  the  retrospect  it  seems  to 


152  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

have  been  mainly  my  own  fault  or  unwisdom. 
Jesus  would  have  'got  along'  pretty  smoothly 
with  nearly  everybody.  Even  the  whip  in  the 
temple  is  said  to  have  been  for  the  cattle,  not 
their  sellers. 

"  Of  course  charity  is  not  to  blind  our  judg 
ment;  but  only  to  enlighten  it.  Exempli  gratia, 
I  have  some  little  charity  for  the  present  Legis 
lature.  Nevertheless,  my  judgment  is  that  they 
are  largely  knaves  and  fools.  Still,  at  this  dis 
tance,  I  can  recognize  some  of  them  as  fellow- 
critters.  But  what  a  mess  they  are  making  of 
educational  matters.  .  .  . 

"If  you  ever  get  thinking  too  much  about 
yourself,  and  your  own  concerns,  read  'King 
Lear,'  or  'As  You  Like  It,'  or  'Hamlet':- 
taking  the  whole  play  at  a  sitting  or  two. 

'•It  is  a  great  pity  that  in  making  plans,  etc., 
one  has  to  think  so  much  about  one's  self. 
Beware,  my  dear  child,  of  too  much  —  or  too 
exclusive  —  interest  in  yourself,  and  your  own 
inner  experiences.  Make  sensible  plans  for 
yourself,  and  then  go  at  their  fulfilment,  for 
getting  yourself  (one  can,  since  all  plans  are  for 
work  of  some  kind,  and  that  may  all  be  from 
within  outward.  Even  reading  and  study  and 
thought  and  writing  —  are  so).  Have  you  read 
Spencer's  'Ethics'?  Better  do  so.  (Did  you 
read  Emerson  on  the  '  Sovereignty  of  Ethics'  in 
'North  American  Review,'  May,  '77?)  Spencer 


TEACHING   IN   CALIFORNIA  153 

has  a  very  sharp  passage  on  Carlyle,  but  who 
has  expressed  the  protest  against  egoism  so 
well  —  so  'very  salt  and  bitter  and  good'  —  as 
he  in  the  second  part  of  'Sartor  Resartus'  (that 
part  —  the  autobiographical  part  —  though  he 
pretends  it  is  not  auto  —  is  worth  reading  over, 
even  if  you  have  n't  lately.) " 

"Here  are  a  few  points  of  advice  from  a 
veteran,  which  I  wish  you  not  only  to  read,  but 
to  solemnly  adhere  to :  — 

"  1.  Don't  care  in  the  faintest  possible  degree 
what  the  children  think  of  your  doings.  (You 
may  think  as  much  as  you  please  of  what  they 
care  for.  They  have  tender  little  hearts.) 

"2.  Don't  try  to  do  (or  have  them)  two 
days'  work  in  one.  Little  by  little,  and  the 
least  things  first,  and  many  times  repeated. 

"3.  Their  education  consists  mainly  in  their 
working:  not  yours.  Sometimes  the  teachers 
that  work  hardest  do  the  poorest  work,  on 
that  very  account.  (Your  work  out  of  school,  of 
course,  helps  them :  but  I  mean,  in.) 

"4.  If  you  find  yourself  getting  excited,  or 
talking  loud,  or  moving  quickly  (i.e.,  hurriedly) 
just  stop,  and  let  the  steam  go  down.  Give  the 
children  something  to  do  quietly,  as  a  composi 
tion  on  'What  I  should  like  to  have,'  or  some 
thing,  meantime. 

"5.  Go  to  bed  early,  after  giving  yourself  a 


154  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

rubbing,  to  get  the  blood  out  of  your  brain  into 
your  skin  and  muscles. 

"6.  Keep  warm:  every  minute,  day  and 
night.  Be  sure  you  are  clothed  warmly  enough 
for  that  climate,  especially  when  winter  comes. 

"7,  8,  9,  and  10.  Never  allow  yourself  to 
think  of  what  you  have  been  doing;  during  the 
day,  for  instance.  It  is  the  going  over  things  in 
the  head  afterwards,  that  kills.  Throw  your 
mind  off  from  a  thing,  when  it  is  done,  and  look 
only  forward,  planning  the  next  thing.  All 
night,  for  example,  think  about  the  next  day's 
work,  not  the  past  one.  This  rule  is  worth 
everything. 

"You  will  feel  queer,  perhaps,  for  a  day  or 
two  or  three,  but  will  soon  like  it  and  enjoy 
yourself." 

"Truly  it  would  be  pleasanter  for  you  to  be 
teaching  with  me  .  .  .  but  perhaps  not  so  good 
for  you  after  all.  That  which  teaches  us  most, 
is  the  best  for  us.  I  often  wish,  myself,  that  I 
were  in  some  'loveliest  village  of  the  vale/  with 
an  old  wooden  schoolhouse  and  a  parcel  of  bare 
foot  urchins;  with  a  little  stream  to  fish  in,  and 
a  long  meadow  to  see  sunsets  from,  and  a  little 
old  church  where  I  might  hear  a  country  choir 
and  doze  o'  summer  afternoons.  But  better 
not.  And  so  with  you.  .  .  . 

"It  is  good,  also,  to  be  alone  for  a  while. 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  155 

That's  the  bitterest  medicine  one  ever  has  to 
take,  but  we  need  it.  So  peg  away  at  the  small 
duties  of  these  days.  A  good  many  of  us  have 
had  very  similar  experiences,  translated  into 
different  languages  of  circumstances  and  par 
ticular  individuals,  but  the  same  in  pur 
port.  .  .  . 

"Don't  let  any  more  of  the  molehills  seem 
mountains  than  you  can  help.  'Who  cares?' 
is  a  good  nightcap. 

"Think  how  dreadful  it  must  be  to  be  such 
people  as  we  wot  of.  What  is  anything  they 
can  do  to  others,  compared  with  that  ?" 

"Your  letter  of  20th  was  received  yesterday, 
on  my  return  from  a  horseback  ride  with  Mr. 
McLean,  up  through  Napa  and  Sonoma.  I 
sent  you  a  paper  from  Napa,  by  the  way  ...  it 
contains  a  couple  of  spirited  pictures.  Don't 
you  like  those  frogs,  with  the  moonshine  on 
their  slippery  legs?  and  the  walrus  picture  is 
good.  I  think  I  should  quietly  substitute  any 
such  for  the  villainous  ones  which  may  be 
among  those  you  speak  of  on  the  walls.  I  used 
to  put  up  newspaper  pictures  on  my  school- 
house  walls,  for  lack  of  finer  ones.  Children 
absorb  so  much  through  the  eye.  .  .  . 

"You  are  right  about  the  geography  class. 
Give  them  all  the  physical,  I  should  say  to 
gether.  Skip  much  of  the  other  geography, 


156  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

having  them  learn  only  the  principal  things, 
and  those  with  great  thoroughness.  Outline 
map  recitations:  pointing  to  rivers,  great  cities, 
etc.,  and  stimulating  them  (a  large  class  of 
mixed  grades  can  do  it)  to  quick  accurate  an 
swers  —  the  best  thing.  .  .  .  Get  the  class  to 
take  an  imaginary  voyage  with  you  down  a 
river,  or  along  a  coast,  or  so  forth  (in  a  balloon 
over  a  country,  say).  Then  each  in  turn  de 
scribes  what  they  see.  Play  we  have  come  to 
such  and  such  a  town:  what  costumes;  'ex 
ports';  trees  and  plants;  climate,  etc.  .  .  . 

"You  will  get  along  very  well,  I  think,  with 
your  little  flock.  Your  big  boys  won't  trouble 
you  much.  If  either  of  them  should,  be  firm 
as  a  rock.  He  must  do  as  you  say,  or  leave. 
You  must  remember  that  you  are  not  only 
hired  by  that  deestricJc,  but  by  the  State  of 
California.  .  .  .  You  have  the  Governor  and 
Supreme  Court  and  Legislature  at  your  back 
for  support,  provided  you  do  just  right.  .  .  . 
But  I've  no  idea  they  will  offend.  They  are 
coarse  enough,  no  doubt;  but  a  good  deal  of  it  is 
superficial.  At  heart  they  have  good  about 
them.  Every  one  had  a  mother.  Half  of  these 
students  are  just  as  bad,  under  the  surface.  You 
or  I  are  bad  enough,  if  it  comes  to  that.  We 
must  n't  be  squeamish:  physicians  (moral  and 
mental,  as  well  as  physical)  have  to  stand  some 
things  that  are  offensive.  You  must  take 


TEACHING   IN  CALIFORNIA  157 

things  right  by  the  horns.  Don't  allow  any 
thing  bad  for  fear  of  speaking  of  it.  Take  your 
sinners  one  by  one,  however.  Never  chide  in 
public,  if  you  can  help  it.  ...  See  the  good  in 
your  children,  all  you  can." 

"I  am  very  glad  you  have  the  lovely  things 
to  look  at,  in  sky  and  mountain.  We  could 
hardly  get  on  otherwise.  With  those,  and  a  few 
human  beings  whom  we  believe  in  and  trust, 
and  these  both  as  prophetic  intimations  of 
something  beyond,  higher  than  either  —  we 
can  do  very  well  —  even  if  they  fry  the  steak, 
and  the  grammar  class  seems  panta  konis, 
pant  a  ouden. 

"I  wish  I  could  help  you  in  some  way.  I  can 
only  send  my  sympathy,  and  urge  you  to  do  all 
you  can  for  the  children,  regardless  of  their 
defects  of  breeding,  the  disagreeableness  of 
their  parentage,  etc.  ...  If  you  can  help  one  or 
two  of  them  ever  so  little:  or  even  make  them 
happier  —  the  cup  of  cold  water,  you  know : 
there  is  a  good  deal  in  that." 

"You  should  be  writing  a  good  deal,  in  odd 
moments.  Send  me  anything  that's  good  — 
after  it  gets  cold :  —  so  that  you  need  n't  feel 
that  it's  going  to  be  sent  while  writing;  for 
what  we  all  need  is  to  keep  clear  of  restraining 
influences  —  these  obscure,  subtle  ones,  that 


158  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

throw  us  out  of  rapport  with  ourselves,  and 
make  us  think  of  the  writing  instead  of  the 
thing  to  be  written.  I  believe  we  could  all  of  us 
write  something  worth  while  if  we  could  get 
free  from  everything  but  the  looking  clearly  at 
the  inner  thing  we  are  trying  (or  should  be)  to 
transcribe." 

"If  your  brain  wheels  run  on  ...  give  them 
some  good  important  grist  to  grind:  as,  a  new 
book  —  or  a  bit  of  natural  science  (natural 
science  is  a  good  healthy  inanity  to  relieve  the 
brain  with,  any  time),  or  some  French  (e.g., 
'Katia,'  a  Russian  story,  by  Tolstoy,  translated 
into  French).  Take  this  rule  for  yourself:  — 

THINK  OF  THE  LARGEST  THINGS  (among  all  that 

come  through  your  brain,  hour  by  hour)  and 
those  that  have  the  least  reference  to  yourself. 
You'd  much  better  be  thinking  about  the 
explorations  in  Assyria,  and  act  in  your  per 
sonal  affairs  from  momentary  common  sense 
and  instinct,  than  to  neglect  all  these  world- 
interests  and  be  planning,  be  reminiscing  about 
some  small  personal  relation  or  piece  of  con 
duct."  A  personal  glimpse  from  Miss  Shinn's 
diary  supplements  these  scraps  of  letters. 

"Mrs.  Sill  got  her  little  dog,  Twinkle,  that 
afternoon,  —  I  do  not   remember  whence,  - 
a  spaniel  puppy;  she  called  him  Twinkle  later, 


TEACHING   IN   CALIFORNIA  159 

because  the  white  spot  at  the  end  of  his  tail 
twinkled  so.  She  called  to  Mr.  Sill  to  come  and 
see  him  as  soon  as  he  got  home,  and  I  heard  him 
say,   *  Where's  Millie?     Has  she  seen  him?' 
They  were  both  much  taken  up  with  the  puppy, 
and  she  said  that  if  Ben  ate  up  her  little  dog, 
Mr.  Sill  would  have  to  dispose  of  Ben.  The  three 
of  us  played  with  or  held  him  most  of  the  even 
ing;  and  then  Mr.  Sill  spent  a  long  time  over 
him,  putting  him  to  bed;  the  puppy  would  cry 
when  left  alone,  and  Mr.  Sill  would  come  back 
and  fuss  over  him;  at  last  he  got  a  hot- water 
bag,  and  put  it  just  under  the  straw  in  the  box, 
and  the  puppy  snuggled  down  to  it  and  stopped 
crying  at  once.  Mr.  Sill  came  and  told  me  that 
we'had  a  good  joke  on  that  little  dog;  he  thought 
it  was  his  mother.'  Then  he  took  his  wife  out 
doors  to  look  at  the  stars,  and  by  and  by  came 
and  asked  me  if  I  knew  what  time  it  was,  and 
told  me  it  was  a  quarter  before  eleven.  I  urged 
that  I  had  not  finished  my  work,  saying  that 
I  found  the  Epistles  slower  reading  than  the 
Odes.    He  said  the  Epistles  were  interesting, 
however.  Then  I  called  his  attention  to  a  large 
and  uncanny  insect  which  had  settled  on  my 
wall,  above  the  door;  he  stepped  inside  to  look 
at  it,  and  exclaimed  at  it.   'I  should  think  you 
would  put  him  out!'    I  said  I  was  afraid  to. 
'You'd  rather  put  him  out  than  have  him  in, 
would  n't  you?'  he  said;  he  then  went  off  and 


160  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

got  a  brush,  saying,  'Who'll  put  him  out? 
Little  Johnny  Stout/  knocked  the  creature 
out  into  the  dining-room  and  shut  my  door, 
saying,  'Good-night.'  But  he  stayed  in  the 
next  room  some  time  himself,  petting  and 
feeding  and  talking  to  the  little  dog. 

"The  puppy  occupied  them  off  and  on  much 
of  Sunday;  but  in  the  afternoon  we  took  a  walk; 
and  as  we  came  back  to  the  house,  Mr.  Sill  said, 
'Betty,  do  you  know  the  people  who  live  here? ' 

-  'I've  met  them,'  she  said,  'but  I  don't  think 
much  of  them.'  -  -  'The  man's  a  queer  sort  of 
fellow,'  he  said;  'I've  met  him  a  few  times.'  — 
'He  does  n't  have  much  to  say  to  you,  does  he? ' 

-  'No.  —  I  guess  he  has  n't  much  to  say.'  — 
I  think  such  whimsical  speeches  as  this  were 
with  Mr.  Sill  an  expression  of  that  sudden 
sense  of  externality  to  one's  self  that  comes 
over  people  of  a  metaphysical  bent  at  times." 

The  same  friend  has  jotted  down  some  re- 
miniscential  impressions  of  Sill's  personality 
during  that  period :  — 

"  When  I  think  of  Mr.  Sill  when  he  was  not  de 
pressed  or  absent-minded,  I  think  of  a  gentle, 
pervasive  brightness,  a  quick,  humorous  ap 
preciation  of  everything,  a  light  quaintness  and 
original  and  whimsical  turn  of  speech  and  be 
havior,  which  kept  one  amused  when  with  him, 
and  kept  the  atmosphere  of  his  house  alluring. 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  161 

It  was  like  all  the  other  charming  traits  in  his 
personality,  a  good  deal  in  the  vivid  yet  subtle 
response  of  his  voice  and  manner  and  face  to 
his  mood,  —  the  lighting-up  of  his  eye,  the 
confidential  and  delightful  tone  of  voice  with 
which  he  took  you  into  the  joke,  —  something 
flattering,  intimate,  whole-hearted,  and  friendly 
about  it.  Certainly,  he  was  never  one  to  'keep 
the  table  in  a  roar,'  to  be  the  centre  of  a  laugh 
ing  circle,  —  it  would  have  shut  him  up 
promptly. 

"If  there  had  been  anything  nervous  or 
abrupt  about  his  manner,  I  think  Mr.  Sill 
might  have  been  called  a  restless  man  in  his 
ways  at  home.  He  did  not  seclude  himself  in 
a  study  and  work  for  hours  together;  he  would 
get  up  and  go  and  attend  to  this  or  that;  he 
passed  to  and  fro  often;  would  come,  perhaps 
twice  or  three  times  in  the  evening,  to  ask  a 
question,  show  a  book  or  picture,  go  to  look  at 
the  weather,  to  see  the  puppy,  etc.  He  did  not 
sit  down  for  a  long  talk,  but  would  exchange  a 
few  sentences  and  off  again.  When  smoking 
with  a  man  friend,  or  when  off  on  a  long  walk, 
there  would  sometimes  be  long  talks,  but  rarely 
under  other  conditions." 

Plainly  enough  his  professional  responsibili 
ties  failed  to  repress  or  pedagogize  him;  he 
remained  swift,  alert,  unpredictable  always, 


162  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

and  incurably  addicted  to  outdoor  vocations 
and  amusements.  As  long  as  he  was  in  Cali 
fornia  he  made  seasonal  jaunts  into  the  moun 
tains;  the  first  dated  back  to  1863  during 
his  first  sojourn  on  the  Pacific  slope  —  an 
expedition  of  adventure  and  discovery  which 
he  recorded  in  a  dithyrambic  effusion  in  the 
Sacramento  "Union"  beginning,  "We  have 
just  returned  from  a  three  weeks'  horseback 
ride  among  the  mountains."  From  1871  to 
1882  he  usually  made  these  excursions  in  com 
pany  with  his  neighbor  and  friend  the  Rever 
end  J.  K.  McLean,  who  has  left  a  pleasant  re 
cord  of  Sill  as  fellow  camper-out :  — 

"With  equal  enthusiasm  would  he  court  the 
sly  wood  hummingbirds  and  delightful  water- 
ousels,  and  coax  the  lizards;  help  to  fell  trees 
for  river  foot-logs;  gather  fir  and  redwood 
boughs  for  bedding,  and  chop  stumps  for  fuel; 
take  out  rattlesnake  fangs  for  microscopic 
examination,  stalk  deer,  and  praise  the  forest 
flowers  and  mountain  lilies." 

It  is  to  one  or  another  of  these  jaunts  that 
Sill  alludes  in  two  bits  of  prose:  — 

"I  remember  one  night  when  we  were  camped 
by  the  McCloud  River,  deep  in  the  heart  of  the 
redwood  forest  in  northern  California.  There 
was  no  moon.  Far  above  us  the  great  plumy 
tops  of  the  redwoods,  own  kin  to  the  giant 


TEACHING   IN  CALIFORNIA  163 

trees  of  the  Sierras,  rose  like  cathedral  roof  and 
towers,  and  hid  the  starlight.  The  aisles  below 
were  empty  and  silent,  and  mysterious  with  that 
soul  of  shadow  that  haunts  the  solitary  woods 
at  night.  The  aisles  were  silent,  but  not  the 
choir.  For,  a  stone's-throw  to  the  right,  the 
voices  of  the  clear,  deep  river  were  talking  and 
laughing  all  night  long.  They  were  perfectly 
human  tones.  There  would  run  on  for  a  few 
moments  an  even,  continuous  babble;  then  out 
of  it  would  rise  a  mingled  peal  of  musical 
laughter,  like  bells,  or  clear  pebbles  striking 
together,  or  tinkling  of  ice,  yet  all  the  time 
human.  Then  there  would  run  merry  chuck- 
lings  up  and  down  the  river;  and  then  a  shout 
would  arise,  away  downstream,  and  another; 
and  then  all  the  hurrying  voices  would  talk 
loudly  together;  and  then  a  moment's  quiet; 
and  then,  again,  inextinguishable  laughter. 

"If  I  had  lain  there  alone,  perhaps  I  might 
have  understood  some  fragment  of  this  inar 
ticulate  music,  or  speech.  But  perhaps,  too, 
I  might  have  paid  for  it  by  never  hearing  mor 
tal  accents  more;  so  weirdly  this  tumult  of  elfin 
syllables  wrought  upon  me,  even  well  com 
panioned  as  I  was,  there  in  the  dimness  and 
unearthly  solitude  of  the  starlit  forest.1 

"Over  in  the  Sierra  Nevadas,  it  is  true,  I  lay 

1  The  Prose  of  Edward  Rowland  Sill,  p.  47. 


164  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

one  sunshiny  afternoon  along  a  gleaming  slope 
of  the  primeval  granite,  and  cooled  my  cheek 
against  its  ice-planed  polish,  and  admitted  that 
here  at  last  was  something  pretty  old.  Yet 
*  rock-ribbed  and  ancient  as  the  sun'  as  was  this 
gigantic  adamantine  couch,  there  was  a  still 
older  thing  playing  at  that  very  moment  about 
us.  It  was  the  mountain  wind.  I  could  put  out 
my  hand  to  it,  and  reflect  that  it  might  have 
been  this  very  identical  breath  of  air  that 
bubbled  up  through  the  sea  when  the  towers  of 
Atlantis  went  down;  or  it  may  have  flickered 
the  flame  on  Abel's  altar.  'You  need  not,'  I 
might  have  said  to  it, '  think  to  palm  yourself  off 
as  a  freakish  young  zephyr,  just  born  of  yonder 
snow-streak  and  the  sun- warmed  rock;  you 
have  been  roaming  this  planet  ever  since  its 
birth.  You  have  wrhirled  in  cyclones,  and 
danced  with  the  streamers  of  the  aurora;  it  was 
you  that  breathed  Job's  curses,  and  the  love- 
vows  of  the  first  lover  that  was  ever  for 
sworn.'  " 1 

As  a  teacher  Sill  was  suggestive  and  inspiring 
to  a  degree  seldom  matched,  so  that  his  old 
students  speak  of  his  classroom  talks  to  this 
day.  He  was,  of  course,  especially  interested 
in  language  and  its  niceties.  One  of  his  Latin 
students  writes  of  his  attention  to  "true  ade- 

1  The  Prose  of  Edward  Rowland  Sill,  p.  259. 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  165 

quate  renderings  in  English.  He  used  to  say, 
*When  Virgil  wrote  this  he  did  not  merely 
choose  words  that  expressed  his  literal  meaning 
to  Roman  readers,  as  if  he  had  been  telling  his 
grocer  which  kind  of  vegetable  he  would  take: 
he  had  also  to  convey  to  his  reader  the  atmos 
phere,  the  poetic  suggestion,  the  "light  that 
never  was  on  sea  or  land,"  which  was  in  his 
own  vision,  and  which  would  cling  about  the 
well-chosen  word  in  Latin  just  as  much  as  in 
English  poetry;  and  you  do  not  render  him  truly 
into  English  unless  you  reproduce  all  that.'  A 
happy  choice  of  a  word  in  our  Virgil  class  was 
a  find,  over  which  he  openly  rejoiced,  and  the 
class  with  him." 

And  in  another  place  the  same  writer  gives 
a  somewhat  austere  view  of  Sill's  teaching 
methods :  — 

"Comparative  philology,  derivations,  the 
laws  of  language,  especially  the  comparative 
laws,  drawn  from  different  languages,  inter 
ested  him  greatly,  and  was  one  of  the  things 
most  emphasized.  He  liked  to  speir  into  the 
psychology  of  different  forms  of  language  ex 
pression,  —  why  did  the  Latin  reduplicate 
the  perfect,  and  why  should  an  auxiliary  like 
'have'  express  perfect  tense  to  us?  Why  should 
the  Greek  mind  and  the  modern  European 
mind  demand  an  article,  and  the  Roman  mind 
none?  etc.  He  read  chapters  of  Max  Miiller 


166  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

and  other  philologists  to  us,  and  his  own  zest  in 
the  matter  made  comparative  philology  seem 
the  most  exciting  of  researches.  How  he  found 
time  for  all  this,  I  do  not  know:  we  entered 
college  with  a  preparation  as  severe  as  that 
of  to-day,  in  grammar  and  translation,  and 
although  our  course  was  three  years,  and  they 
take  four  now,  and  have  specialized  teachers 
in  each  subject,  they  get  no  time  for  all  these 
literary  and  philological  divagations,  for  the 
careful  polishing  of  translations,  the  attempts 
to  render  in  English  verse,  the  construction  of 
models  of  Caesar's  bridge,  —  and  yet  Mr.  Sill 
was  quite  a  martinet  in  the  grammatical  accu 
racy  he  required.  He  expected  paradigms  to 
be  so  learned  that  they  were  rooted  for  a  life 
time;  syntax  to  be  minutely  understood;  and 
he  had  an  old-fashioned  (and  I  think  perfectly 
sound)  respect  for  a  rule,  committed  to  memory 
till  it  was  a  lifelong  possession.  He  was  not  in 
the  least  a  New  Education  man,  and  all  his 
variations  were  played  on  a  conservative  theme. 
Rigid  drill,  memorizing,  repetition,  underlay  all 
his  work;  and  we  were  never  allowed  to  begin 
to  have  fun  with  a  subject  till  we  had  accom 
plished  the  drudgery  of  it.  He  did  not  fear  or 
shirk  drudgery  for  himself,  and  had  no  idea  of 
letting  us  do  it." 

It  is  recalled  that  "he  kept  photographs  of 
classical  statuary  in  the  room  .  .  .  and  we  had 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  167 

sundry  talks  about  them  which  .  .  .  gave  us 
an  infection  of  his  genuine  liking  for  them." 
It  was  probably  his  recollections  of  seeking 
suitable  pictures  that  set  him  writing  years 
later,  when  he  had  laid  aside  the  professional 
toga:  — 

"If  I  were  a  Professor  of  Literature,  I  should 
desire  to  hang  my  lecture-room  with  pictures, 
—  not  of  the  old  traditional  and  forbidding 
decrepitudes,  but  of  Milton,  for  example,  as 
the  charming  young  swordsman,  with  velvet 
cloak  tossed  on  the  ground  and  rapier  in  hand; 
of  Homer,  no  longer  blind  and  prematurely 
agonized,  as  it  were, with  our  modern  perplexi 
ties  in  finding  him  a  birthplace,  but  as  the  splen 
did  young  Greek  athlete,  limbed  and  weaponed 
like  his  own  youthful  vision  of  Apollo,  as 

'"Down  he  came, 

Down  from  the  summit  of  the  Olympian  mount, 
Wrathful  in  heart;  his  shoulders  bore  the  bow 
And  hollow  quiver;  there  the  arrows  rang 
Upon  the  shoulders  of  the  angry  god, 
As  on  he  moved.   He  came  as  comes  the  night, 
And,  seated  from  the  ships  aloof,  sent  forth 
An  arrow;  terrible  was  heard  the  clang 
Of  that  resplendent  bow.' 

"I  would  tamper  with  even  such  venerated 
traditional  dignities  as  Mrs.  Barbauld,  for  the 
sake  of  their  own  rehabilitation  in  the  eyes  of 
misguided  youth.  She  should  no  longer  frown 
formidable  behind  the  stately  prsenomen  of 


168  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

'Letitia';  she  should  be  given  back  her  true 
girl-name  of  'Nancy,'  and  be  represented,  after 
her  own  account,  as  lithely  and  blithely  climb 
ing  an  apple  tree.  Pythagoras  should  be  a  gra 
cious  stripling,  crowned  with  ivy  buds  and 
stretched  at  a  pretty  goat-girl's  feet,  touching 
delicately  the  seven-stringed  lyre.  Even  Moses 
might  be  shown  as  a  buxom  and  frolicsome  boy, 
shying  stones  at  the  crocodiles.  Only  Shakes 
peare,  of  all  the  pantheon,  would  need  no 
change.  His  eternal  youthfulness  has  been  too 
much  for  the  text-books  and  the  monument- 
makers,  and  we  always  seem  to  conceive  him 
as  the  fresh-hearted  and  full-forced  man  he 
really  was."1 

For  the  three  ensuing  years  students  and 
classes  and  the  problems  of  education  absorbed 
him.  His  letters  —  few  and  far  between  — 
seldom  touch  upon  anything  else.  His  class 
mate,  Henry  Holt,  remains  his  standby  for  all 

needs :  — 

BERKELEY,  May,  '77. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  Your  package  of  books 
for  the  Students'  Library  is  received.  ...  It 
has  excited  considerable  enthusiasm  in  the 
students  that  one  of  the  great  publishers  in 
New  York  should  send  such  a  gift.  I  think  it 
has  had  some  result  on  their  views  of  human 

1  The  Prose  of  Edward  Rowland  Sill,  p.  251. 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  169 

nature,  as  well  at  the  prospective  scholarly  re 
sult.  If  you  know  what  my  notions  of  teaching 
are,  you  will  understand  what  place  books  for 
the  student  hold  in  my  views  of  the  universe. 
It  is  my  hobby  that  the  best  education  you  can 
give  a  young  fellow  (if  not  about  the  only  edu 
cation)  is  to  bring  his  mind  in  real  contact 
with  the  best  other  minds.  My  labor  goes  in 
that  direction:  selecting  with  (I  hope)  con 
stantly  better  discrimination  the  best  things, 
and  the  best  parts  of  the  best,  and  contriving 
new  ways  to  get  the  boys  the  power  and  the 
desire  and  the  opportunity  to  assimilate  them : 
to  "get  outside"  of  them.  .  .  . 

Who  would  have  thought,  that  night  when 
we  were  sleepily  talking  about  the  future,  in  bed 
in  your  room  in  New  Haven,  in  1860,  that 
seventeen  years  after  (what  a  distance  that 
seemed  then !)  I  was  to  be  hammering  at  the 
young  brains  in  these  longitudes,  and  you  were 
to  be  sending  out  a  lot  of  steam-power  to  keep 
the  hammer  going.  The  whirligig  brings  round 
lots  of  things  besides  revenges. 

What  a  surprise  it  will  be  a  thousand  years 
hence  if  we  happen  to  be  doing  similar 
things. 

The  next  three  letters  are  addressed  to  Daniel 
C.  Gilman,  who  had  been  President  of  the  Uni 
versity  of  California  when  Sill  went  there,  and 


170  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

was  now  President  of  Johns  Hopkins.  They 
introduce  a  new  figure,  Josiah  Royce,  who  was 
to  become  very  well  known  later,  and,  by  the 
way,  to  become  a  very  good  friend  of  Sill. 

BERKELEY,  Nov.  14,  '77. 
To  DANIEL  C.  OILMAN:  — 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  may  as  well  say  again 
that  I  was  very  much  disappointed  at  not  see 
ing  you.  I  did  not  call  at  your  house  for  the 
reason  that  I  feared  you  would  make  the  ef 
fort  to  see  a  caller  when  you  were  not  really 
well  enough  to  do  so.  I  trust  you  are  well  again 
by  this  time:  and  so  ready  to  be  bothered  once 
more  with  questions;  as,  item,  do  you  know  of 
any  college  in  good  standing  that  gives  the 
degree  of  A.B.  without  Latin  and  Greek,  or 
without  Greek?  What  colleges  give  A.M. 
without  Latin  or  Greek  (aside  from  compli 
mentary  degrees)?  If  I  understand  aright  you 
give  A.B.  for  certain  courses  which  may  not 
include  Greek.  And  why  not?  if  a  course  is 
contrived  with  stuff  in  it  equivalent. 

Our  new  President  is  about  announcing  a 
course  in  "Science  and  Letters,"  which  is  to  be 
a  "liberal  education"  for  businessmen.  I  tell 
him  —  as  about  the  old  'jjftrawberry  "  -there 
might  be  made  a  course,  perhaps,  —  and  may 
perhaps  in  the  future,  —  which  shall  give  a 
"liberal  education"  without  Latin;  but  who 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  171 

has  seen  such  a  one  as  yet  invented,  or  any 
certain  product  thereof? 

I  for  my  part  am  unwilling  to  have  much  to 
do  with  —  or  to  be  responsible  at  all  for  —  any 
regular  college  course,  with  a  degree,  which  is 
not  worthy,  at  least,  of  A.B.:  or  equivalent 
thereto.  I  am  willing  to  lecture  to  teachers 
and  others  on  Literature,  etc.,  and  do  do  it;  but 
I  don't  believe  a  "college"  ought  to  give  a  regu 
lar  four  years'  curriculum  and  give  a  degree  at 
the  end  of  it,  unless  there  is  good  substantial 
stuff  in  it,  enough  to  make  a  rich  and  trained 
mind. 

Do  you  know  of  any  young  man  who  has 
the  making  of  a  professor  of  English  literature 
in  him,  and  whom  I  could  get  next  year  and 
maybe  sooner  for  assistant,  to  teach  rhetoric, 
composition,  etc., 

Sincerely  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

BERKELEY,  May  6,  1878. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  wish  you  would  tell  me 
if  you  know  of  just  the  right  man  for  my 
assistant  here  next  year.  I  have  some  little 
hope  that  I  may  get  the  Regents  to  give  $100 
a  month.  Of  course  nobody  could  be  imported 
for  less  than  that.  In  fact  I  shall  try  to  make 
them  offer  $125.  I  believe  I  have  succeeded, 
in  spite  of  the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  Presi- 


172  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

dent,  in  creating  a  demand  for  English  studies 
in  the  university,  getting  a  start  largely  through 
you.  The  students  want  it,  and  most  of  the 
faculty  do,  in  theory,  though  in  practice  the 
Mathematics  still  ride  us  like  a  nightmare. 
I  want  a  young  man  for  assistant:  young,  so 
that  he  may  be  receptive  and  willing  to  do  my 
way  rather  than  some  older  and  worse  one 
(if  he  have  any  better  one,  I  hope  to  be  recep 
tive)  :  he  should  have  a  genuine  love  of  litera 
ture  and  quickness  to  comprehend  it  (I  don't 
care  so  much  for  wide  attainment  in  it  as  for 
the  gift  of  appreciation  of  literature  and  dis 
crimination  as  to  it) :  he  should  know  a  good 
deal  about  the  English  language  (and  to  know 
about  that  he  must  be  a  good  mental  philos 
opher  —  more  important  even  than  the  phil 
ology)  and  the  Latin  and  Greek,  and,  if  pos 
sible,  German.  Finally,  he  should  be  a  good 
writer  and  speaker  (both  of  these  in  the  natural, 
i.e.,  modern  style)  and  so  the  cause  of  it  in 
others. 

If  you  can  point  me  to  such  a  man,  I  will  be 
very  thankful.  And  if  he  be,  in  addition  to  these 
foregoing  graces  and  perfections,  a  man  with 
a  bit  of  aesthetics  about  his  brains  somewhere, 
I  will  verily  use  all  the  eloquence  I  have  or 
can  borrow  to  get  him  $150  a  month. 

I  can't  get  over  the  conviction,  in  truth  I 
get  more  and  more  under  it,  that  the  best 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  173 

thing  "education"  can  do  for' a  boy  —  next  to 
bringing  him  into  communication  with  his  living 
fellows,  both  students  and  teachers  —  is  the 
getting  him  into  full  communication  with  the 
best  that  is  in  literature.  I  feel  as  if  I  wanted  to 
set  twenty  men  at  work  on  these  students  here, 
helping  me  to  do  it,  or  letting  me  help  them. 

I  am  obliged  to  you  for  an  occasional  paper 
and  so  forth;  I  am  always  glad  to  get  anything 
that  keeps  me  acquainted  with  your  doings.  I 
read  to  my  juniors  a  considerable  part  of  the 
addresses  at  your  anniversary,  as  notable  scraps 
of  modern  literature.  I  mean  to  have  them 
know,  and  I  am  glad  of  whatever  may  help 
to  keep  me  well  aware,  that  there  is  a  world 
outside  of  Berkeley,  and  that  it  moves. 

Sincerely,  EDW.  R.  SILL. 

BERKELEY,  Sept.  4,  '78. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  Royce  has  been  duly  re 
ceived,  and  found  to  answer  the  description. 
He  will  do  excellently  well  here,  there  is  no 
doubt  —  only,  he  must  not  stay  too  long  in  the 
wilderness,  for  his  own  sake.  A  certain  period 
of  isolation  in  the  Desert  and  of  being  tempted 
by  the  Devil  is  probably  good  for  any  of  the 
sons  of  men,  but  not  too  long.  I  shall  look  out 
that  he  is  not  drudged  to  death.  .  .  . 

I  open  this  again  to  assure  you  that  I  have 
had  no  trouble  whatever  from  his  independence. 


174  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

For  instead  of  trying  to  make  him  fit  into  any 
cast-iron  plans  of  work,  I  have  made  the  plans 
fit  him;  and  have  given  him  things  to  do  that 
would  make  the  given  man  most  useful  to  the 
given  pupils:  giving  him  logic,  for  instance, 
instead  of  the  English  language,  to  teach  the 
freshmen.  And  he  does  admirably  with  it. 

Scraps  from  various  letters  show  how  vital 
and  how  wide  Sill's  interests  in  education  were. 
He  is  for  books  and  reading,  and  finds  he  holds 
a  minority  view :  he  wants  a  Students'  Library 
to  "supply  a  crying  want  of  our  poor  young 
sters,  who  have  and  can  have  next  to  no  books 
of  their  own.  I  find  no  one  here  (except  now 
Royce  —  and  I  could  hug  him  for  it)  to  agree 
with  me  as  to  this  need  of  the  students.  The 
faculty  take  the  ground  that  reading  is  a  very 
dangerous  habit  for  students!  I  wish  I  had 
you  here  for  a  spare  hour  in  which  to  pour  out 
to  an  appreciating  spirit  my  views  of  the  said 
faculty  for  such  (and  many  such)  ideas.  .  .  . 
I  am  making  a  list  of  books  to  recommend  for 
our  public  school  libraries.  If  you  know  of  any 
list  made  by  competent  hands  I  wish  you'd 
tell  me.  ...  I  would  give  a  good  deal  for  a 
really  well-chosen  list  of  a  hundred  volumes 
for  girls'  and  boys'  reading.  ...  I  want  to  get 
into  communication  with  somebody  in  Eng 
land  who  knows  (or  cares)  about  public  edu 
cation  there.  .  .  .  We  have  always  been  hear- 


TEACHING   IN   CALIFORNIA  175 

ing  about  the  German  schools  and  universities. 
I  am  more  and  more  coming  to  think  it  is  the 
English  schools  we  want  to  know  about  and 
universities,  judging  by  results  in  producing 

thoroughly  civilized  men.  .  .  . was  spoilt 

(temporarily  only,  I  hope  and  believe)  by  going 
to  Germany  before  he  had  thought  much  him 
self.  I  always  have  said,  'damn  the  French,' 
and  of  late  I  am  getting  to  extend  that  gra 
cious  sentiment  to  the  Germans." 

At  President  Gilman's  suggestion  Sill  sent 
his  inquiry  about  English  schools  to  Matthew 
Arnold  and  got  an  answer.  One  cannot  help 
regretting  that  this  should  be  apparently  the 
only  contact  between  these  two  spirits,  so 
close  akin,  but  separated  by  "the  unplumbed, 
salt,  estranging  sea":  - 

"I  have  just  heard  in  reply  from  Matthew 
Arnold,  who  says  some  good  strong  things  in 
favor  of  the  classics  —  for  their  own  sake,  and 
as  sine  qua  non  for  a  real  appreciation  of  Eng 
lish  literature.  But  he  does  n't  tell  me  what 
I  just  now  want  to  know:  what  books  or  re 
ports  give  the  truest  and  fullest  idea  of  educa 
tion  (below  university)  in  England.  I  partic 
ularly  want  just  now  a  history  of  education  in 
Great  Britain.  I  wish  Mr.  Arnold  would  write 
one,  with  full  notes  and  comments!" 

He  keeps  at  his  task  of  helping  his  students 


176  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

even  after  they  have  left  college  and  has  re 
course  again  to  President  Oilman :  — 

BERKELEY,  Sept.  9,  '78. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  Do  you  know  of  any  wise 
man  (or  woman)  who  is  interested  in  the  ques 
tion  of  occupations  for  educated  girls,  and  to 
whom  I  could  write  on  the  subject?  Here  we 
graduate  every  year  a  number  of  intelligent 
and  virtuous  and  industrious  young  women  — 
but  what  are  they  to  do?  Teaching,  of  course, 
is  open,  but  sometimes  they  don't  like  that, 
and  are  not  suited  for  it,  or  have  n't  the  nerves 
to  stand  the  public  school  drudgery.  .  .  . 

They  drive  me  to  my  wits'  end  every  year, 
with  the  impossibility  of  seeing  anything  for 
them  but  teaching  or  getting  married. 

Do  you  know  of  any  one  East  who  would  act 
as  an  intelligence  office  for  educated  girls? 

Or  doesn't  the  East,  any  more  than  "the 
Coast,"  want  any  more  educated  girls? 

Had  we  better  stop  producing  them  till  the 
demand  increases?  By  the  way,  when  are  you 
going  to  open  Johns  Hopkins  to  girls? 

Royce  is  fairly  at  work  and  begins  well. 
Yours, 

EDW.  R.  SILL. 

Royce  just  comes  in  and  wishes  to  be  re 
membered  to  you :  says  he  shall  write  as  soon 
as  he  can. 


EDWARD    R.    SILL,    1879 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  177 

There  have  not  been  wanting  hints  that  Sill 
found  himself  at  times  in  but  imperfect  sym 
pathy  with  his  associates.  A  further  hint  of  it 
comes  in  a  postscript  to  a  note  written  late  in 
1880:- 

"They've  been  tossing  me  in  a  metaphorical 
blanket  in  the  faculty  for  teaching  irreligion  - 
especially  in  a  course  of  lectures  I've  been 
giving  Saturday  mornings  to  teachers  from 
Oakland  and  San  Francisco. 

"It  would  make  you  laugh  if  you  knew  all 
about  it.  Alas,  that  you  are  so  far  away!  I 
could  from  time  to  time  tell  you  many  a  good 
thing,  if  you  were  not:  humors  of  the  'educa 
tional'  arena." 

Which  recalls  a  remark  among  the  recollec 
tions  of  one  of  his  students :  "Had  we  not  heard 
from  parental  criticism  outside,  and  from  his 
absence  from  the  prayer-meeting  and  church 
activities  with  which  Oakland  abounded,  that 
he  was  not  considered  orthodox,  I  do  not  be 
lieve  we  should  have  thought  of  anything  at 
odds  with  orthodoxy  about  him." 

But  when  a  professor's  religious  views  —  or 
lack  of  views  —  become  subject  of  discussion 
in  the  faculty  there  are  breakers  ahead. 

BERKELEY,  Feb.  24,  '82. 

Some  of  my  young  people  are  trying  to  find 
out  something  about  Ruskin's  St.  George's 


178  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

Society.  Can  you  lay  your  hand  on  any  recent 
promulgation  with  regard  to  it?  ...  This  is 
one  of  the  last  times  I  shall  bother  you  about 
such  things  probably,  for  I  'm  going  to  quit  my 
chair  here  and  propose  not  to  try  to  find  out 
anything  more  than  comes  along  naturally,  for 
the  rest  of  my  life.  I  have  even  almost  a  notion 
I  will  go  to  the  other  extreme  and  try  writing 
some  poetry  or  something,  for  a  year  or 
two. 

I  have  resigned  my  professorship  —  to 
take  effect  in  August.  Congratulate  me.  I  am 
tired  nearly  to  death  —  not  so  much  with  the 
work,  as  with  the  unpromising  conditions  of 
it,  and  its  environments.  .  .  . 

The  interval  was  filled  with  interest.  There 
was  first  his  twentieth  anniversary  at  Yale  to 
which  he  returned  gladly,  and  there  was  his 
first  and  only  visit  to  Europe.  Meantime  his 
interest  in  writing  becomes  more  practical.  He 
writes,  freely  as  ever,  to  his  classmates,  Holt 
and  Dexter. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  As  to  the  wee  bookie 
["  The  Hermitage"]  I  have  pondered,  and  more 
than  that  have  (for  the  first  time  in  six  years) 
looked  over  the  volume.  If  I  were  to  get  it  out 
again  it  would  be  with  just  half  the  things  out, 
and  just  about  as  much  put  in  their  place  (from 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  179 

magazines,  etc.).  But  this  I  am  not  anxious 
to  do;  for  while  there  is  a  little  demand  (as 
I  hear  constantly  from  our  booksellers  here 
abouts)  for  a  new  edition,  I  look  upon  it  as 
a  demand  not  for  poetry  but  for  the  Professor's 
poetry.  That  is,  you  understand,  not  a  legiti 
mate  demand.  The  poetry,  if  good  for  any 
thing,  ought  to  make  me  in  demand,  not  I  the 
poetry. 

I  am  getting  on  well  enough,  considering 
what  planet  we  are  on.  ...  I  am  still  trying 
with  considerable  energy  each  day  (which 
gives  out  toward  night,  I  confess)  to  see  what 
is  good  and  valuable  in  English  (and  other 
peoples')  literature.  The  more  I  look  the  less 
I  find,  but  the  more  I  prize  what  little  I  do 
find. 

I  should  like  to  make  a  prose  book  or  two  for 
you  to  publish,  but  I  shall  not  live  long  enough 
to  do  it,  nor  will  you  ever  be  likely  to  be  rich 
enough  to  afford  to  publish  the  sort  of  books 
I  should  write. 

BERKELEY,  CAL.,  Feb.  13,  1880. 
DEAR  HENRY,  —  Thank  you  for  the  in 
formation  for  my  inquiring  student  about  the 
book-man.  I  knew  about  the  Social  Science 
Association,  but  my  point  was  that  they  don't 
go  to  the  bottom-difficulty,  viz.,  what  end  are 
we  after?  And  secondly,  is  it  the  end  we  had 


180  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

better  be  after?  My  notion  is  that  Spencer  is  the 
only  man  that  has  begun  to  answer  that  ques 
tion  —  namely  in  the  "Data"  —  and  in  previ 
ous  hints  which  he  that  did  n't  run  too  fast 
might  read  —  and  that  the  Associations  have 
been  puttering  about  contagious  diseases, 
drainage,  prison  reform,  and  other  such  excel 
lent  matters  to  work  at,  but  the  perfection  of 
which  would  leave  us  very  little  better  off  than 
at  present.  The  best  thing  you  can  do  with 
such  people  as  we  have  now  is  to  let  the  con 
tagious  diseases  thin  'em  out  a  little,  perhaps. 
As  to  your  thought  that  I  have  scattered, 
and  ought  to  make  myself  "favorably  known." 
My  dear  fellow,  I  like  your  caring  for  me  enough 
to  say  this  and  wish  this,  but  — if  you  knew 
about  my  life  of  late  years  and  my  ideas  of 
life,  you  would  see.  I  am  not  and  have  n't  been 
trying  for  it.  I  have  been  working  to  educate, 
in  some  high  sense,  successive  classes  of  young 
people;  and  meanwhile  to  know  more  about 
education,  and  especially  literature  as  a  means 
of  it,  and  about  education  in  its  relation  to 
society  and  life.  I  am  contented  to  die  un 
known,  if  I  can  arrive  at  the  truth  about  cer 
tain  great  matters,  and  can  put  others  in  the 
way  thereof.  If  there  is  anything  which  utterly 
disgusts  me  and  makes  me  howl  aloud  and 
swear,  it  is  these  infernal  fools  who  are  fight 
ing  to  get  their  names  abroad,  and  care  for  no 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  181 

other  work.  That  a  man  like  Spencer  should 
be  well  known  is  a  matter  of  course  and  all 
right;  but  he  has  not  cared  for  that.  Let  a  man 
work  his  work  in  peace,  and  the  devil  take  his 
name  —  the  less  likely  to  get  anything  more 
of  him  than  that. 

But  I  am  ever  yours. 

You  think  I  write  on  various  subjects. 
No.  Only  on  education  (which  is  my  hobby) 
and  on  literature,  with  an  occasional  wild  ex 
cursion  into  sociology.  I  take  a  great  and  grow 
ing  interest  in  being  the  cause  of  writing  in 
others.  Have  trained  up  already  two  "Atlan 
tic"  writers  and  various  smaller  fry.  I  like  to 
help  at  the  incubation  of  poets,  especially. 

BERKELEY,  Feb.  27,  1881. 

DEAR  HENRY,  —  ...  Glad  you  've  a  'cello, 
too.  What  a  shame  for  George  Eliot  to  make 
her  villain  in '  Deronda '  play  a  'cello.  I  wonder 
if  Lewes  tortured  one,  and  she  got  to  hate  it. 

Do  you  know  any  way  to  get  introduced 
to  the  editors  of  the  "  Nineteenth  Century  "  or 
any  other  first-rate  British  magazine,  where 
they  would  take  a  poem  —  a  sonnet  or  so  now 
and  then  —  by  an  American? 

I  have  a  friend  who  has  contributed  to  the 
"  Atlantic,"  and  can,  I  suppose,  whenever  she's 
willing,  but  her  poetry  is  so  far  above  their 
level  that  I  want  to  get  it  into  a  British  maga- 


182  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

zine.  (This  not  to  be  quoted;  somebody  might 
think  I  send  to  the  "  Atlantic  "  and  am  rejected, 
which  is  n't  true.) 

Why  does  n't  New  York  have  a  first-class 
magazine  of  Literature  and  Thought?  You 
start  one  and  make  me  editor.  If  a  little  pro 
vincial  city  like  Boston  can  have  a  decent 
magazine,  why  can't  New  York  have  a  really 
good  one?  Is  n't  the  time  ripe?  Really,  is  n't 
this  worth  thinking  of? 

Want  me  to  go  to  England  with  you,  if 
you  go?  Or  I  suppose  you  would  wish  to  go  on 
the  Continent. 

Yours  ever  as  ever, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

...  I  hope  there  will  be  a  good  gathering 
of  our  class.  Not  that  I  expect  it  to  be  a  very 
jolly  company,  for  I  presume  we  are  all  begin 
ning  to  get  pretty  thoroughly  sobered  down. 
But  there  are  a  good  many  whom  I  would  like 
very  much  to  see.  It  will  be  interesting  to  see 
whether  we  have  all  got  entirely  incompatible 
points  of  view,  by  this  time.  Shall  we  find  old 
friends  who  can't  discover  a  single  common 
ground  to  meet  on  —  beyond  the  weather  or  a 
college  prank  or  two? 

I  —  for  my  part  —  feel  a  sort  of  vaguely 
lonesome  desire  to  make  a  new  friend  or  two 
out  of  the  old  ones  —  if  it  were  possible.  I 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  183 

would  like  to  find  one  or  two  fellows  who  be 
lieve  in  something  that  I  do  —  and  in  doing 
something  that  I  believe  in  trying  to  get  done. 
Or  must  we  all  fight  it  out  alone  —  solitary 
skirmishers  —  when  we  are  come  to  forty 
year. 

Yours  ever, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

There  was  "a  good  gathering"  and  Sill  was 
welcomed  and  honored  as  he  had  always  been, 
and  so,  with  his  heart  warmed  at  the  old 
shrine,  set  out  on  his  trip  to  Europe.  Doubtless 
he  was  worn  and  tired  from  his  long  stint  of 
teaching;  for  apparently  he  wrote  nothing 
while  he  was  away.  Only  the  merest  scraps  of 
letters  remain,  and  for  his  impressions  of  the 
journey  we  have  to  turn  to  fragments  from  his 
later  prose. 

From  Switzerland  and  the  Lake  Country  he 
sent  scanty  notes  to  Miss  Shinn  whose  career 
he  followed  with  keen  interest :  — 

GENEVA,  SWITZERLAND,  Sept.  1881. 
I  was  thinking  this  morning,  as  I  lay  wait 
ing  for  it  to  be  time  to  get  up  (and  waiting  — 
also  —  for  the  clouds  to  clear  away  from  Mont 
Blanc,  so  that  I  could  see  it  better  from  the 
window),  about  the  difficulties  that  beset  writ 
ing  under  all  circumstances.  It  is  easy  to 


184  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

see  why  so  few  good  or  valuable  books  have 
been  written.  The  wonder  is  that  any  one  ever 
surmounts  the  obstacles,  and  gets  anything 
accomplished  beyond  plans.  I  am  wondering, 
also,  whether  you  are  doing  anything  with  the 
pen.  Remember  the  Statue  and  the  Bust. 

These  Alps  are  very  near  kin  to  our  Sierras : 
more  picturesque,  more  full  of  surprises,  more 
to  the  painter's  hand,  perhaps;  but  hardly 
more  beautiful  or  impressive  —  except  a  few 
regions,  as  that  of  Mont  Blanc,  the  like  of 
which  I  have  not  seen.  .  .  . 

What  a  long  time  it  takes  the  mail  to  crawl 
around  such  a  little  pocket  planet. 

AMBLESIDE,  WESTMORELAND,  Sept.  '81. 

This  violet  is  a  descendant  of  the  one  Words 
worth  is  always  writing  about.  At  least  I 
picked  it  to-day  on  the  side  of  the  path  where 
he  must  have  walked  many  times,  between  his 
house  and  the  Stock  Ghyll  Force.  It  is  a  beau 
tiful  region,  this  of  the  English  Lakes;  but  one 
does  n't  see,  after  all,  why  poetry  should  n't  be 
thought  and  felt  and  written  as  well  at  Niles  or 
Berkeley,  as  in  Westmoreland.  The  Alps  and 
this  region  you  must  see  some  day. 

In  haste,  with  regards  to  you  all,  from  both 
of  us 

Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  185 

There  is  a  curiously  interesting  allusion,  in 
an  essay  entitled  "Can  Tunes  be  Inherited?" 
to  the  voyage  to  England :  — 

"  It  was  on  a  Cunarder  in  mid-ocean,  on  the 
voyage  to  Liverpool.  One  evening  I  was  loiter 
ing  up  and  down  the  deck  in  the  warm  moon 
light,  when  a  group  of  steerage  passengers,  sit 
ting  or  reclining  about  the  foot  of  the  foremast, 
began  to  sing  in  a  low  and  half-unconscious 
strain  in  the  midst  of  their  talk.  They  were, 
it  seems,  Welsh  people,  who  were  choosing  this 
particular  time  to  revisit  the  fatherland  be 
cause  of  an  approaching  Eistedfod,  somewhere 
in  South  Wales.  It  was,  I  perceived  instantly, 
the  *  music  of  my  dreams.'  To  the  best  of  my 
knowledge  and  belief,  I  had  never  heard  these 
tunes,  or  any  such  tunes,  sung,  whistled,  or 
played  anywhere  before.  It  had  so  happened 
that  I  had  never  lived  in  or  near  any  Welsh 
settlements.  I  had  never  chanced  to  make  the 
acquaintance  of  so  much  as  one  solitary  Welsh 
person,  so  far  as  I  know.  Yet  here,  sung  by  these 
returning  Cymric  exiles  in  the  yellow  moon 
light,  as  we  rose  and  fell  on  the  gently  heav 
ing  waves,  —  here  were  the  very  strains  that 
had  for  years  been  floating,  unbidden  and  un 
recognized,  through  my  brain." 

When  he  writes  on  "The  Oldest  Thing  in  the 
World,"  he  is  reminded  of  the  cathedrals,  and 
but  for  these  parenthetical  allusions  we  should 


186  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

have  no  idea  of  his  route  or  the  range  of  his 
journey :- 

"We  cross  the  sea  to  find  a  cathedral  that  is 
truly  ancient,  and  they  point  us  with  pride  to 
this  summer's  restorations;  but  while  the  group 
stands  admiring  them,  the  American  slides 
away  quietly,  and  'slips  behind  a  tomb,'  or  is 
found  rapt  on  some  dear,  unrestored  nook  of 
the  ivied  cloister.  Just  so  it  is  on  the  Conti 
nent:  Paris  is  always  too  wonderfully  new  and 
shining,  as  if  Orpheus  had  strummed  it  up  only 
this  very  morning  from  entirely  new  materials. 
My  favorite  spot  is  in  the  Louvre,  between  the 
five-footed  bull  of  Assyria  and  the  rose-colored 
granite  sarcophagus  of  Rameses  III.  The 
Hague  is  delightfully  swept-up  and  washed- 
down  and  immaculately  fresh  and  resplendent; 
but  my  best  moment  there  was  when,  in  the 
museum,  I  took  in  my  hand  a  gold  coin  of 
Alexander,  and  as  it  lay  cool  and  smooth  in  my 
palm  I  thought  it  was  probably  one  that  the 
conqueror  himself  flung  ringing  against  the 
tub-staves  of  Diogenes,  the  day  that  worthy 
growled  at  him  to  'get  out  of  his  sunshine.' 

"It  is  astonishing  how  insensible  we  some 
times  are  to  the  most  beautiful  or  sublime  spec 
tacles.  Noble  scenes,  which  at  another  time 
would  inspire  the  imagination  and  thrill  the 
heart  with  a  tumult  of  emotions,  now  unfold 
their  glory  before  our  unmoved  eyes,  and  the 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  187 

humdrum  thoughts  plod  along  their  accus 
tomed  way.  Travellers  know  this  phenome 
non  very  well.  Ely  Cathedral  lives  in  my  mem 
ory  as  a  delicious  vision  of  solemn  loveliness; 
but  when  my  friends  praise  York  Minster, 
I  hardly  recall  that  I  was  ever  there.  This  in 
difference  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  fact  that  in 
York  my  brain  happened  to  be  dough  or  putty 
for  the  time  being,  and  in  no  respect  on  the 
architecture  of  the  minster." 

Returning  from  England  in  October,  stop 
ping  by  the  way  at  Cambridge,  New  Haven, 
and  Baltimore,  Sill  took  up  his  work  at  Berke 
ley  for  what  was  to  be  his  last  year.  A  note  to 
President  Gilman  and  a  few  lines  to  Dexter 
bridge  the  episode  over,  and  now  our  man  of 
letters  takes  up  what,  in  spite  of  his  New  Eng 
land  conscience,  his  inherited  predilection  for 
preaching,  and  his  relentless  ethical  tenden 
cies,  was  his  real  calling  and  life-work  —  litera 
ture.  This  is  the  last  of  the  pedagogy:  — 

BALTIMORE,  Oct.  20,  '81. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  am  sorry  not  to  say 
"how  d'  ye  do"  and  "good-bye"  in  person, 
but  I  would  not  come  round  to  your  house  lest 
you  should  see  me  when  you  were  really  feeling 
unfit  for  it.  I  trust  you  will  take  a  run  away  and 
not  let  yourself  get  ill.  I  have  enjoyed  looking 


188  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

into  the  rooms  of  the  university  a  bit,  and 
hearing  some  of  the  exercises,  and  wish  I  could 
stay  longer;  but  must  return  to  California  next 
week.  My  stay  in  England  cheated  me  out  of 
my  anticipated  visit  here  and  elsewhere  in  the 
East:  though  I  did  get  a  peep  at  Yale  and 
Harvard. 

In  haste,  as  ever  yours,  E.  R.  SILL. 

To  PRES.  GILMAN. 

I  am  very  sorry  to  hear  of  Mr.  Lanier's 
death.  His  book  on  English  verse  is  the  only 
thing  extant  on  that  subject  that  is  of  any 
earthly  value.  I  wonder  that  so  few  seem  to 
have  discovered  its  great  merit. 

I  want  to  find  an  assistant  in  English 
Composition  and  Rhetoric,  etc.:  if  possible 
one  who  has  in  him  the  making  of  a  professor 
of  English  literature,  to  take  my  place  before 
long.  Know  him? 

Yours,  E.  R.  S. 

BERKELEY,  March  26,  '82. 

I  sent  you  one  college  paper  epitaph,  and 
here  is  another.  You  may  be  interested  to 
see  it,  and  I  am  rather  glad  to  have  you;  for 
maybe  nobody  will  ever  say  any  more  good- 
natured  things  about  me,  unless  it  be  on  a 
veritable  tombstone.  'Nil  de  moribundis  nisi 
bonum.*  . 


TEACHING  IN  CALIFORNIA  189 

"Perhaps  I  ought  to  add  that  my  resigna 
tion  was  entirely  voluntary  (not  that  I  have 
any  reason  to  think  the  Regents  have  any  ex 
aggerated  estimate  of  my  value).  My  posi 
tion  had  become  intolerable  for  certain  rea 
sons  that  are  not  for  pen  and  ink,  and  after  a 
good  deal  of  consideration  I  decided  to  leave 
it;  though  I  have  no  immediate  intention  of 
leaving  Berkeley." 

One  of  the  last  things  he  wrote  that  bear  the 
academic  stamp  is  a  bit  of  jocular  verse  to 
his  colleague  Stearns,  on  which  light  note  we 
may  let  the  chapter  close :  - 

July,  1882. 
TO   R.  E.  C.  S.    HORTATORY 

"Come  back,  my  children,"  arid  Berkeley  cries, 
Come  to  my  leathery  gum  trees'  bluish  shade, 
Come  where  my  stubbly  hillside  slowly  dries, 
And  fond  adhesive  tarweeds  gently  fade. 

Here  murmurs  soft  the  locomotive's  shriek, 
And  o'er  the  plain  the  antic  dummy  squeals; 
Here  picnic  eggshells  bloom  beside  the  creek, 
That  sweetly  'mid  its  dried-up  hummocks  steals. 

At  morning  howls  the  neighbor's  pensive  dog. 
At  noon  the  flower-beds  don  their  stony  crust, 
At  evening  softly  falls  the  genial  fog, 
And  every  hour  bestows  its  bounteous  dust. 

Come  —  when  you've  got  to,  not  a  day  before! 
Till  then,  stay  there,  and  heed  not  Berkeley's  lures; 
Drink  health  and  blessing  from  the  mountain's  store, 
And  still,  dear  Stearns,  believe  me, 

Ever  yours. 


VII 

MAN   OF   LETTERS 

ALTHOUGH  his  relation  to  the  university 
closed  with  the  end  of  the  academic  year  in 
June,  1882,  Sill  did  not  immediately  leave 
Berkeley,  but  remained  ordering  his  affairs, 
and  putting  into  effect  some  old  plans  which 
included  preparing  for  the  press  a  collection  of 
his  poems,  "The  Venus  of  Milo,  and  Other 
Poems,"  to  be  privately  printed  for  his  friends. 
Perhaps  he  found  it  easier  also  in  the  accus 
tomed  surroundings  to  make  the  transition 
from  teaching  to  writing.  At  any  rate,  he  lost 
no  time  in  entering  upon  the  new  profession; 
he  seems  to  have  given  no  thought  to  a  new 
post  as  professor,  but  to  have  launched  him 
self  at  once  upon  literature.  In  September  he 
was  in  full  correspondence  with  the  editor  of 
the  "Atlantic,"  and  had  already  taken  a  hand 
in  star-ting  the  new  California  magazine,  "The 
Overland  Monthly." 

The  correspondence  with  Thomas  Bailey 
Aldrich,  then  editor  of  the  "Atlantic,"  grew 
more  intimate  as  time  went  on,  and  the  rela 
tion  became  one  of  mutual  admiration  and 
regard.  Aldrich  wrote  twenty  years  later:  — 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  191 

"It  was  my  good  fortune  to  be  one  of  the 
first  to  recognize  the  fine  quality  of  his  poetry 
and  the  very  first  to  introduce  him  to  his  pub 
lic  —  through  the  pages  of  the  'Atlantic.'  He 
was  sadly  in  want  of  encouragement  at  the  time, 
and  I  encouraged  him  by  printing  everything 
he  sent  to  me.  He  was  a  busy  maker  of  lyrics 
in  those  days,  and  in  order  not  to  seem  to  have 
too  much  Sill  in  the  magazine,  I  published 
some  of  the  poems  over  a  pen-name,  at  his  own 
suggestion." 

That  was  a  little  later;  he  was  now  knocking 
at  the  door :  — 

BERKELEY,  CAL.,  Sept.  11,  1882. 
EDITOR  ATLANTIC:  — 

DEAR  SIR,  —  Your  kind  note  of  the  4th 
declining  my  paper  on  the  Anglo-Saxon  lan 
guage  is  just  received. 

I  trouble  you  with  a  reply  only  because  I 
have  sent  a  second  paper,  and  I  want  to  assure 
you  that  my  articles  are  neither  of  them  scraps 
from  my  reading  of  other  men's  work,  but  are 
at  least  "my  own"  if  "poor  things."  I've  no 
doubt  your  judgment  is  best,  as  to  how  it  would 
strike  readers  of  the  "Atlantic"  and  the  first 
paper  does  no  doubt  sound  like  "odds  and  ends," 
since  it  has  struck  you  that  way,  for  one.  I  had 
an  idea  my  tracing  of  the  Yankee  dialect  and 
other  "mistakes"  in  speech  back  to  Anglo- 


192  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

Saxon  was  new.  Would  you  mind  telling  me 
where  I  may  find  anything  about  that?  I  sup 
pose  it  is  only  another  case  like  the  man  in 
Ohio  who  invented  the  screw  propeller  over 
again  after  it  had  been  used  a  half -century  or 
so.  One  has  to  be  horribly  well  read  to  hope  to 
contribute  to  the  mag[azine]. 

I  warn  you   that  I   shall   send   you  some 
verse  if  you  do  not  accept  my  prose. 
Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

BERKELEY,  CAL.,  Oct.  3,  1882. 
EDITOR  ATLANTIC  :  — 

DEAR  SIR,  —  I  send  you  a  review  of  Her 
bert  Spencer's  "Education."  It  seems  to 
me  high  time  that  the  error  of  this  very  influ 
ential  treatise  should  be  shown,  and  I  should 
be  very  glad  if  it  could  be  shown  in  just  the 
region  covered  by  the  "Atlantic"  —  that  is, 
among  the  illuminati  —  and  so  "work  down" 
through  educational  thought  and  practice.  I 
believe  in  Spencer,  for  the  most  part,  but  I  am 
sure  he  is  wrong  in  the  fundamental  theory  of 
this  treatise.  I  enclose  stamps  for  return  if  not 
used. 

Truly  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  193 

BERKELEY,  CAL.,  Oct.  81,  1882. 
EDITOR  ATLANTIC:  — 

DEAR  SIR,  —  Your  card  of  24th  is  received 
telling  me  of  acceptance  of  my  review  of  Spen 
cer's  "  Education."  Can  you  let  me  read  a  proof 
of  it?  I  am  accustomed  to  that  luxury,  and 
don't  like  to  forego  it  unless  it  is  necessary.  To 
be  sure,  I  have  the  habit  of  making  my  man 
uscript  ready  for  the  printer,  even  to  punctua 
tion,  but  for  all  that,  one  can  always,  by  a  little 
touch  here  and  there  in  just  the  right  place, 
add  greatly  to  the  value  of  a  paper  (or  a  poem 
even) .  I  have  been  accustomed  to  tell  my  stu 
dents  that  the  value  is  usually  added  by  the 
erasing  touch  here  and  there :  that  is  to  say,  by 
lessening  the  denominator  rather  than  increas 
ing  the  numerator.  If  you  are  not  afraid  of 
my  being  too  savage  with  my  own  work,  I  hope 
you  will  send  me  a  proof. 

Truly  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

BERKELEY,  CAL.,  Nov.  18,  1882. 
EDITOR  ATLANTIC  :  - 

DEAR  SIR,  —  I  send  in  to-day's  mail  re 
turn  proofs  of  my  paper  on  Herbert  Spencer's 
"Theory  of  Education."  I  registered  them  be 
cause  our  distance  is  so  great  that  it  would  not 
do  to  have  them  lost  on  the  way.  On  the  last 
page  I  have  changed  the  spelling  of  Shak- 


194  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

spere's  name  from  mere  force  of  habit.  If  you 
prefer  to  have  your  magazine  hold  to  a  uniform 
spelling  the  other  way,  of  course  I  don't  care 
a  fig  about  it.  I  have  very  liberal  views  as  to 
an  editor's  privilege  to  make  non-essential 
changes.  Nothing  except  poetry  has  any  rights 
which  a  competent  editor  is  bound  to  respect. 
I  am  much  obliged  to  somebody  for  calling 
my  attention  to  certain  infelicities,  in  blue  pen 
cil.  If  your  proof-reader,  please  make  him  my 
compliments. 

Truly  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  March  21,  1883. 
MR.  ALDRICH  :  — 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  I  send  registered  a  paper 
on  "English  Literature  in  the  College  Course." 
It  is  something  I  have  been  getting  ready  to 
say  for  a  long  time,  and  I  feel  sure  that  it  is  true. 
It  is  for  you  to  judge,  of  course,  whether  people 
will  be  interested  in  it;  but  it  follows  naturally 
after  my  paper  on  Spencer's  "Theory,"  as  giv 
ing  some  positive  suggestions,  after  that,  which 
was  negative  criticism.  It  is  calculated  to  stir 
some  persons  to  wrath,  no  doubt;  but  it  would 
be  good  for  them.  And  I  believe  that  the  best 
of  the  readers  of  the  "Atlantic"  will  agree  with 
me  and  be  glad  to  hear  the  thing  said.  At  any 
rate,  I  would  like  to  have  it  appear  in  the 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  195 

"Atlantic,"  rather  than  elsewhere,  because  I 
know  it  would  do  most  good  from  that  van 
tage-ground.  You  will  find  the  ball  of  the 
whole  cartridge  in  the  last  pages :  the  rest  is  for 
powder. 

May  I  ask  you  to  keep  the  manuscript  for 
me  for  a  few  days  if  you  should  not  use  it,  and 
I  will  write  or  call  for  it.  And  will  "the  editors  " 
be  kind  enough  to  let  me  know  by  a  note  what 
you  decide? 

Pardon  my  addressing  you  personally,  this 
time. 

Sincerely  yours,         E.  R.  SILL. 

Sill  had  now  settled  down  at  the  "hospitable 
house"  with  which  we  are  familiar  at  Cuya- 
hoga  Falls,  and  his  correspondence  ordered 
itself  with  three  nuclei  —  the  group  of  Cali 
fornia  friends  at  Berkeley,  his  Yale  classmates 
in  New  Haven  or  New  York,  and  the  maga 
zine  editors.  To  California  he  wrote  gossiping 
letters,  not  disdaining  the  weather,  although 
he  was  tempted  into  jocular  verse  when  he  got 
meteorology  in  reply :  - 

TO   MY   CORRESPONDENT   WHO   WRITES   OF 
THE   WEATHER 

Write  all  about  yourself,  my  dear! 

For  I  don't  care,  I  'm  sure  —  Oh, 
Reports  as  if  from  "Probs"  to  hear, 

Or  from  the  Weather  Bureau. 


196  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

I  wish  to  hear  of  you  —  the  straws 
That  show  which  way  you're  blowing; 

I  want  to  know  your  life,  because 
Your  life  is  worth  the  knowing. 

I  love  to  follow  all  your  hours; 

Your  dreams  when  day  is  winking; 
And  what  you  like,  in  folks  and  flowers, 

And  what  you  think  you  're  thinking. 

Then  put  away  upon  a  shelf 
The  outside  world;  and  whether 

It  snow  or  blow,  just  write  yourself, 
And  never  mind  the  weather! 

"Zero  weather.  Snow  creaks  and  crackles 
under  foot.  Two  people  cross  a  carpet  and  give 
a  sharp  spark  to  one  another's  noses.  Went 
skating  yesterday.  Did  n't  'cut  across  the 
shadow  of  a  star'  because  it  was  daylight,  and 
besides  the  critics  say  it  can't  be  done.  'Shad 
ow'?  No:  what  is  it?  'Reflex'?  'Sparkle'? 

"A  white  world,  with  skeleton  trees  —  ner 
vous  systems  anatomized  and  set  up  in  the  air, 
frozen  stiff  —  is  a  queer  thing:  unearthly." 

"It's  a  bad  time  to  take  up  trees  in  the 
winter;  ground  is  frozen;  roots  can't  go  down. 
This  is  a  parable.  If  it  were  summer  here, 
no  doubt  I  should  be  taking  long  walks  and  go 
ing  fishing,  and  mooning  about,  nights  —  and 
keeping  my  old  environment  out  of  my  head  as 
thoroughly  as  possible.  But  it 's  winter  —  the 
dead  vast  and  middle  of  it  (as  Howells  quotes 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  197 

of  the  summer)  —  and  my  roots  are  all  in  the 
air  as  yet,  and  I  feel  extremely  queer.  We  are 
supposed  to  have  got  settled.  ...  I  have  estab 
lished  a  writing-table  with  the  birds  contiguous, 
as  near  a  window  as  I  dare  put  'em  for  fear  of 
freezing  their  noses  off;  you  remember  how  the 
cold  air  pierces  in  between  the  sashes  of  a  win 
dow  like  a  long  thin  knife?  .  .  .  They  manage  to 
have  some  green  leaves  and  posies  under  a 
glass  —  but  what  looking  gardens!  They  were 
spaded  in  the  fall,  so  that  when  not  mercifully 
veiled  with  snow  they  look  all  lumpy  mud, 
frozen.  Gracious!  what  a  looking  world. 

"I  am  supposed  to  be  entered  upon  a  mad 
career  of  literary  work.  Have  so  far  only  writ 
ten  some  very  mild  verses  —  suitable  for  nurs 
ery  use  in  some  amiable  but  weak-minded 
family.  But  then  I've  been  skating  twice! 
Think  of  that  —  real  ice,  too.  You  can  make 

Mr.  B^ feel  bad  about  that,  if  you  tell  him 

-  and  make  him  think  he'd  like  to  be  here; 
but  he  would  n't. 

"It's  a  curious  illusion  of  yours  out  there, 
that  you  can  go  out  and  pick  flowers  and  hear 
leaves  rustle  and  see  grass  grow  and  feel 
thorough-going  sunshine.  You  can't,  you  know, 
'cause  it 's  winter  everywhere :  snow  and  ice,  or 
frozen  slush  and  mud  —  it  must  be.  I  used  to 
have  that  same  hallucination  when  I  was  out 
there.  Queer.  Effect  of  the  Climate,  I  s'pose." 


198  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

"The  air  here  makes  a  man  feel  like  stirring 
around  lively.  Sets  your  feet  to  walking  you 
of  indefinite  distances.  But  there 's  no  splendid 
Berkeley  view  to  behold  when  you  get  to  the 
end  of  your  walk.  We  can't  have  everything 
in  one  spot.  What's  the  use  of  crying  for  the 
moon?  Better  flatten  one's  nose  on  the  pane 
and  gaze  upon  it  and  try  to  be  glad  he  has  n't 
got  it.  Should  have  to  take  care  of  it  and  pay 
taxes  on  it  if  we  had  it." 

"I  am  and  shall  be  interested  in  all  Cali 
fornia  goings-on,  for  I  am  glad  to  accept  the 
axiom  some  one  has  quoted  to  me,  'Once  a 
Californian,  always  a  Californian.'  We  may 
be  forced  to  blush  sometimes  for  our  politicians 
out  there,  but  our  Bay  civilization  is  a  thing 
to  be  congratulated  on.  ...  ' 

"Spring    just    faintly    appearing    here- 
snubbed  by  a  snow-storm  every  few  days.  No 
leaves  out,  but  robins  and  blue-birds,  and  buds 
swelling." 

"Summer  is  a-cumin  in.  Loudly  sings 
cucku,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  wobbin,  and  the 
gluebird,  and  the  noriole.  It  is  80°  -  -  warm, 
and  a  thunder-storm  night  before  last,  and 
crocuses  and  jonquils  and  hyacinths  and  prim 
roses  are  in  bloom  in  the  gardens,  and  hepati- 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  199 

cas  and  anemones,  as  well  as  arbutus,  in  the 
woods.  But  there  is  not  enough  oxygen  in  the 
warm  south  wind.  It  is  a  very  soft  and  musical 
wind  on  the  blossomed  elms  and  maples,  and 
just  beginning  to  be  scented  with  cherry  blos 
soms  —  but  it  lacks  the  oxygen  of  the  sea 
breeze.  Funny  old  world!  Where  there  are 
lovely  things  to  see  in  the  country,  the  air 
tries  to  prevent  your  having  the  energy  of  a 
dormouse,  to  go  out  to  walk  and  see  them. 
Where  the  air  is  bracing,  there's  nothing  much 
to  go  out  for  to  see.  Evidently  a  world  not 
meant  to  make  its  denizens  perfectly  contented. 
The  duty  of  not  being  contented!  what  an 
easy  duty!" 

His  letters  to  Dexter  and  Williams  are  in  the 
old  vein,  and  there  is  one  to  (Governor)  Bald 
win  showing  how  well  the  college  bond  held:  - 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  April  25.  '83. 

Your  note  and  the  package  came  yesterday. 
Thank  you  very  much.  .  .  . 

But  the  real  difficulty  with  me  is  to  get 
books.  No,  there's  a  worse  one  —  to  get  peo 
ple.  But  that,  I  suppose,  we  all  have,  every 
where.  I  have  organized  a  town  library  asso 
ciation  in  the  village  here.  Where  can  wTe  get 
any  gifts  of  books?  ...  I  am  trying  to  get  the 
schools  into  the  library  work.  But  oh,  for  books  I 


200  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

I  hope  to  see  your  face  again  some  day. 
But  I  don't  know  when  or  where.  It  is  a  long 
ways  from  here  to  New  Haven.  Further  than 
from  San  Francisco,  a  little.  .  .  . 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  May  7,  '83. 

.  .  .  Papers  again  received.  Thank  you. 
"The  Critic"  I  see.  It  is  Bohemian,  though 
bright  enough.  Why  can  we  have  no  magazines 
or  papers  that  are  not  just  a  little  second 
choppy?  "Life,"  now,  as  compared  with 
"Punch"!  Gray-Parker,  compared  with  Du 
Maurier  (why  does  the  former  never  by  any 
accident  depict  a  lady  or  gentleman?  Because 
he  never  saw  one,  near?) 

"The  Spectator"  I  like  very  much.  Should 
like  your  copies  all  the  better  if  you  ran  your 
pencil  here  and  there  where  you  have  said 
"hear,  hear."  A  paper  with  a  pencil  line  is 
most  as  good  as  a  letter.  "  The  Church  Times  " 
is  the  funniest  comic  paper  I  have  seen.  No 
wonder  they  can  support  a  "Punch"  in  Eng 
land,  where  the  church  is  itself  an  education 
in  the  ludicrous  for  the  whole  people. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  May  15,  '83. 
TUESDAY. 

MY  DEAR  BALDWIN,  —  Yours  of  10th  is  at 
hand.  I  was  unusually  glad  of  your  letter,  from 
the  fact  that  I  looked  upon  you  as  pretty  much 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  201 

gone  out  of  my  horizon.  This  epistle  brings 
you  in  again,  most  visibly,  and  I  seem  to  recog 
nize  that  you  were  not  gone  at  all.  You  speak 
in  a  very  friendly  way  of  my  small  volume  of 
poems.  Yes,  they  are  very  middle-age-y;  and 
maybe  it's  better  to  let  the  youngsters  do  the 
piping,  as  they  do  the  dancing.  Tityrus  with 
a  bald  head  and  false  teeth  and  a  shrunk 
shank,  —  it's  enough  to  titter-us,  isn't  it? 
(That's  the  very  kind  of  bad  pun  you  used  to 
do  in  freshman  year.)  Land  of  love!  —  that 
was  in  1857-58.  Was  that  just  before  or  just 
after  the  glacial  epoch?  As  to  the  Bones  poem, 
I  shall  be  most  happy  to  try  to  have  something. 
Perhaps  I  shall  be  your  way  next  week,  or  week 
after,  for  a  day  or  two,  and  will  try  to  see  you. 
Thank  you  very  much  for  your  kind  offer 
of  hospitality  to  us.  I  don't  know  whether  it 
will  be  possible  for  my  wife  to  go  on,  but  I 
should  be  most  happy  to  accept  for  one  or 
both  of  us.  Let  me  see.  The  Bones  address 
will  be  sort  of  humorous,  won't  it?  —  and  so 
the  poem  might  be  pretty  serious  —  if  short? 
Or  must  I  frisk  and  be  very  foolish  —  "pin 
nacled  dim  in  the  intense  inane  "  ?  I  think  I  '11 
have  to  be  serious. 

Ever  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

He  accepted  the  invitation,  read  a  poem  at 


202  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

the  reunion  of  Skull  and  Bones  at  Yale,  and 
spent  a  few  weeks  of  old-fashioned  vacation 
at  his  birthplace,  Windsor,  whence  he  writes : — 

WINDSOR,  CONN.,  June,  1883. 

I  have  been  making  a  pilgrimage  to  Elling 
ton  to-day.  ...  It  has  been,  to  begin  with,  a 
perfect  June  day,  and  you  remember  the  look 
of  it  in  these  regions:  the  blue  sky  with  white 
dapples  in  it,  the  lustrous  leaves  not  yet  long 
enough  out  of  their  sheaths  to  have  lost  their 
tender  new  green,  the  fields  full  of  daisies  (too 
full,  the  honest  farmer  would  say  —  but  not  too 
full  for  the  passing  vagabonds  to  enjoy),  the 
laurel  glimmering  in  the  woods  (remember  it?), 
the  roads  as  they  run  through  thickety  places 
full  of  the  smell  of  wild  grape  blossoms  (re 
member  'em?),  the  rye  soft  and  wavy  (nothing 
but  rye  in  the  sandy  plains  betwixt  here  and 
Ellington,  or  a  little  tobacco  and  spindly  corn) 
—  plain  living  and  high  thinking  must  be  the 
rule  out  around  there  among  the  farmers.  .  .  . 

Ellington  is  beautiful.  It  might  be  just  a 
little  quiet  in  the  winter,  for  gay  people  like 
you  .  .  .  but  at  this  season  it  is  great.  There's 
a  glorious  silence  there.  I  saw  a  man,  and  a  boy 
with  a  toy  wagon,  and  another  man,  all  on  the 
street  at  once.  But  they  went  into  dooryards 
and  were  seen  no  more.  What  a  dignity  and 
placid  reserve  about  the  place!  The  houses 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  203 

all  look  like  the  country-seats  of  persons  of 
great  respectability  who  had  retired  on  a  com 
petence  —  and  retired  a  great  ways  while  they 
were  about  it.  And  what  big  houses  they  used 
to  build.  Used  to,  I  say,  because  there  is  n't 
a  house  over  there  that  looks  less  than  a  thou 
sand  years  old :  not  that  they  look  old  as  seem 
ing  worn  or  rickety  at  all,  but  old  as  being  very 
stately  and  wise  and  imperturbable.  I  am 
struck,  all  about  here  in  Connecticut,  with  the 
well-kept-up  look  of  the  houses.  Paint  must 
be  cheap  —  no,  't  is  n't  that.  Paint  is  prob 
ably  pretty  dear;  but  they  believe  in  keeping 
everything  slicked  up.  Yet  there  are  a  few 
oldest  of  the  old  houses  that  came  out  of  the 
ark,  I  know. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  OHIO,  July,  1883. 
I  have  myself  just  "lit"  from  a  flight  among 
Eastern  places.  Have  been  gone  about  two 
months :  the  old  habit,  you  see,  of  getting  away 
for  summer  vacation.  No  mountains,  to  be 
sure,  to  flee  to,  but  the  White  hills  •  «.vc£y 
snKtto—  are  considered  and  believed  to  be 
mountains  in  New  England,  and  I  would  not 
cruelly  undeceive  them  there.  I  called  them 
mountains  whenever  I  could  think  of  it  — 
especially  Mount  Washington,  which  really  is 
a  very  pretty  piece  of  rising  ground:  specially 
at  sunset  when  it  *e  wraps  the  drapery  of  its  " 


204  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

cloud-shadows  and  ridge-shadows  about  it, 
and  gets  rosy  on  top.  ...  I  had  a  few  days  in 
New  York:  found  it  as  of  old  (and  more  than 
of  old,  a  good  deal)  a  splendid  city:  nothing 
in  Europe  handsomer  or  gayer  than  Fifth 
Avenue  of  an  afternoon,  or  by  electric  light 
in  the  evening.  But  I  rather  hated  it,  except  as 
a  wonderful  show,  and  got  out  of  it  quickly 
to  old  Windsor,  which  is  sleepier  than  ever: 
lovely  old  place  though,  —  "home  of  per 
petual  peace." 

It  is  a  generous  soul  that  writes  without 
reference  to  accurate  tally  of  give  and  get. 
You  and  -  -  are  about  the  only  ones  among 
my  friends  that  will  do  it.  Why  should  n't  we? 
Are  we  bound  by  the  slaveries  that  women  sub 
mit  to,  with  their  double  entry  (front  entry 
and  back  entry)  book-keeping  of  social  "calls" 
(hence  the  phrase,  the  "call  of  duty"?)  Poo* 
women !  Who  would  be  thou ! 

July  16,  '83. 

I  am  just  back  from  a  summering  in  the 
ancient  and  somnolent  pastures  of  New  Eng 
land  :  some  weeks  at  my  old  home,  Windsor,  in 
the  Connecticut  River  valley  —  you  remember 
how  green  and  peaceful  that  region  is,  corn 
fields  and  hay-fields,  and  elm-shaded  streets 
and  maple-shaded  houses  (with  green  blinds, 
mostly  shut  tight),  and  patches  of  their  pretty 
woods  —  the  trees  only  shrubs  to  a  California 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  205 

eye,  but  ever  so  fresh  and  graceful,  and  lus 
trous  with  rain  or  dew:  a  week  in  the  White 
Mountains  —  they,  too,  dwarf  varieties,  but 
capable  of  good  coloring  and  various  pictur 
esque  "effects":  and  a  few  days  on  the  Maine 
seashore. 

No  discount  on  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  The 
only  thing  East  that  does  n't  seem  like  a  feeble 
imitation,  after  living  so  long  in  California.  (I 
hardly  except  the  people  as  to  certain  charac 
teristics.  .  .  .) 

Aug.,  '83. 

It  is  an  evidence  of  the  irrational  attach 
ment  one  gets  (as  cats  do)  to  places,  that  the 
Berkeley  postmark  (which  the  good  Dr.  - 
makes  very  conscientiously :  ex  pede  Herculem, 
the  mark  of  a  careful  and  just  man)  gives  me 
always  a  pleasant  little  twinge  of  homesickness. 
It  is  an  evidence  of  the  somewhat  more  rational 
attachment  we  get  to  people,  that  your  hand 
writing  does  likewise,  only  more  so.  ... 

We  are  having  hot,  moist,  muggy  summer 
weather.  We  live  on  the  recollections  of  the 
Maine  coast  and  the  White  Mountains.  It  is 
pleasant  to  know  that  there  it  does  n't  rain  hot 
water.  Once  in  a  while  I  reflect,  also,  with 
pleasure,  that  you  in  Berkeley  are  cool  and 
vigorous  and  chipper,  while  we  are  being  par 
boiled.  But  there  are  beautiful  things  to  behold 
here  on  these  summer  mornings,  and  glorious 


206  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

summer  nights.  We  have  moonlight  here.  The 
full  moon  is  a  ripper,  I  tell  you.  Great  on  a  row 
of  maples  —  big  fellows  —  with  a  shade  deep 
and  black.  —  I  hope  Mr.  Crane  is  all  right 
again. 

Aug.  11,  '83. 

DEAR  KELLOGG,  —  Yours  of  4th  was  re 
ceived  yesterday,  and  papers  containing  the 
same  sad  news  of  Mr.  Crane's  death.  I  had 
heard  that  he  was  seriously  ill,  but  afterward 
that  he  was  supposed  to  be  out  of  danger;  so 
that  I  was  greatly  surprised  when  the  news 
came.  Somehow  he  seemed  a  man  that  would 
not  die:  there  seemed  such  an  amount  of  quick, 
active  life  in  him.  I  always  thought  of  him  as 
so  thoroughly  alive.  He  always  came  to  my 
recollection  as  he  looked  when  speaking  in  the 
Club  —  perfectly  quiet  in  manner  and  tone, 
and  every  fibre  of  his  brain  evidently  electric. 
I  had  written  him  a  letter  a  few  weeks  ago, 
from  an  impulse  to  tell  him  how  well  I  appreci 
ated  him  and  liked  him.  I  am  specially  glad 
now  that  I  did.  Another  evidence  that  a  man 
had  better  always  follow  his  first  impulse.  .  .  . 
And  it  [his  mind]  was  kept  clear  and  reinforced 
all  the  time  by  an  integrity  of  intellect  that 
made  him  look  first  of  all  to  see  what  was  true. 
Other  men  were  after  the  right  sound,  or  the 
prudent  word,  or  the  polite  one,  or  the  amiable 
one,  or  one  that  would  stop  a  gap  when  ideas 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  207 

were  wanting.  He  was  after  the  exact  and  una- 
dulerated  fact.  And  my  brain  was  actually  in 
love  with  his,  ever  since  I  first  knew  him. 

Personally,  he  never  in  the  least  warmed 
toward  me;  but  I  never  in  the  least  looked  for 
that.  One  of  the  things  that  made  me  like  him 
was  that  I  seemed  to  see  that  he  divined  my 
own  limitations,  and  weighed  me  pretty  accu 
rately.  I  admired  him  the  more  from  the  fact 
that  he  did  not  at  all  admire  me,1  and  I  liked 
him  the  more  from  the  fact  that  his  intellectual 
honesty  seemed  to  do  justice  to  mine  —  a 
thing  which  from  boyhood  has  been  a  perma 
nent  craving  with  me.  Well,  I  did  n't  expect 
him  to  die,  and  I  am  mighty  sorry  to  lose  him 
from  this  world.  Yes,  he  is  one  of  the  men  that 
help  one  to  believe  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul.  I  think  Crane  —  the  real  man  —  must 
be,  somewhere,  to-day,  just  as  truly  as  he  was  a 
month  ago. 

To  the  Californian  friends,  particularly  Miss 
Shinn,  whose  literary  taste  —  having  largely 
formed  it  himself  —  he  found  congenial,  he 
wrote  freely  and  without  reserve,  mixing  sense 
and  nonsense,  gossip  and  criticism  as  the  fol 
lowing  scraps  and  paragraphs  from  the  letters 
of  1883-84  will  show:  — 

1  In  fact,  Mr.  Crane  cherished  a  peculiar  admiration  for 
Professor  Sill. 


208  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

I  '  ve  just  finished  a  paper  on  the  co-educa 
tion  question  (you  see  how  the  public,  at  last, 
has  got  excited  about  that?  Oh,  they  will  get 
the  old  fogy  colleges  into  it,  yet)  which  I  shall 
maybe  send  to  some  magazine.  The  trouble  is, 
nobody  agrees  with  anything  he  reads  unless  he 
agreed  with  it  beforehand  —  so  what's  the  use? 
I  don't  believe  a  man  was  ever  convinced  of 
anything  since  Adam.  People  blunder  into 
opinions  somehow,  and  then  stick  to  'em. 


I'll  tell  you  what  you  are  sure  to  enjoy 
reading  —  Jane  Welch's  letters.  I  was  reading 
a  book  about  Rossetti  t'  other  day,  in  which 
he  is  quoted  as  saying  she  was  a  "bitter  little 
woman  "  -  but  she  probably  snubbed  him  and 
thought  small  beer  of  his  brass  crucifixes  and 
aesthetic  flummeries.  She  was  a  cracker  at  let 
ter  writing,  anyway.  And  she  must  (from  his 
own  account  of  it)  have  suffered  no  end  from 
Carlyle's  dreadful  ways.  She  says  in  one  letter 
to  him,  "it  would  never  do  for  me  to  leave  you 
for  good  [I  infer  she  had  really  considered  that 
question],  for  I  should  have  to  go  back  next  day 
to  see  how  you  were  taking  it  "  !  —  I  wish  I  could 
step  into  my  neighbor's  there  to  see  how  you 
are  taking  it.  Bet  you  have  forgotten  where  we 
lived  and  how  I  spell  my  name!  (Two  1's 
—  capital  S). 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  209 

So   my   A verses   went   in   unre vised. 

Just  as  well.  The  idea  is  all  there.  I  almost  feel 
like  despising  and  violating  all/orm,  when  I  see 
the  fools  that  worship  it.  I  always  understood 
why  Emerson  made  his  poems  rough  —  and  I 
sympathize  more  than  ever. 

Nor  do  I  like  two  adjectives  with  comma,  in 
description.  Always,  I  should  say,  strike  out 
one  of  them  (vide vs.  Turgenieff) . 

Exception  1.  When  the  first  qualifies  the  sec 
ond  +  the  noun  as  one  quantity  (no  comma). 

2.  When  the  two  describe  practically  the 
same  quality  (as,  the  long,  narrow  slit).  This 
is  not  to  be  found  in  books,  I  guess,  but  is 
correct,  is  n't  it? 

I  don't  think  there's  anything  in  the  idea 
that  a  man  must  stay  out  of  medicine  unless  he 
can  go  in  like  a  monomaniac  —  i.e.,  an  enthusi 
ast.  Why  shouldn't  people  go  into  things 
soberly,  seeing  the  other  side,  and  all  sides;  and 
with  no  vows  to  stay  in  till  death  do  them  part. 
It  sounds  well  to  lay  down  great  moral  axioms 
about  what  people  should  do  and  should  n't  do, 
and  get  them  off  solemnly  to  young  people  — 
to  their  great  impressment  but  ultimate  con 
fusion;  but  it  is  a  little  absurd. 

Read  Caine's  "Recollections  of  Rossetti"  — 


210  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

but  it  will  make  you  melancholy.  —  Heavens! 
what  does  n't?  Carlyle  and  Emerson  corre 
spondence,  for  instance. 

Jefferson's  "Real  Lord  Byron"  (Franklin 
Square)  makes  him  awfully  real  indeed :  selfish, 
vulgar,  low.  Shelley  was  ten  times  as  much  of  a 
man. 

C.  Kegan  Paul's  "Essays"  are  good. 

Old  Don  Quixote  is  perennially  good  read 
ing.  A  Dore  copy  lies  on  our  parlor  table,  and 
every  few  days  at  some  odd  ten  minutes  I  open 
it  and  read  again.  That  of  the  enchanted  boat, 
for  instance.  It  is  universal  human  nature. 
Cervantes  really  was  like  Shakspere. 

Do  you  know  Landor's  "Imaginary  Con 
versations"?  Some  of  them  are  Shaksperian. 
Read  some  of  them  if  you  have  n't.  They  are 
real  dramatic  poems,  like  Browning's,  some  of 
them.  Henry  VIII  and  Anne  Boleyn,  e.g.  — 
and  Dante  and  Beatrice. 

Hamerton's  "Round  my  House"  is  pretty 
reading  for  light  reading.  —  But  I  have  lately 
some  moods  that  require  the  things  that  go 
right  to  the  core  of  the  intellect,  or  else  the 
piteous  and  tragic  things  that  wring  my  heart. 
Sometimes  history  —  plain  prose  —  will  serve 
best.  Mommsen's  "Rome,"  e.g.,  in  the  Julius 
Csesar  epoch.  The  novelists  for  the  most  part 
seem  idle  chatterers.  . 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  211 

Read  "Emily  Bronte"  in  the  Famous  Wo 
men  Series  (the  style,  etc.,  you  need  not  resent 
or  criticise  —  the  total  effect  of  the  picture  is 
all)  --  then  re-read  "  Villette." 

How  do  you  like  Miss  Phelps's  new  book? 
I  confess  it  moved  me  greatly  —  perhaps  hit 
ting  just  the  right  mood  to  do  it  in.  ...  Read 
A.  Trollope's  "Autobiography"?  (Franklin 
Square  and  big  print.)  To  me  very  interesting. 
Think  of  that  mother  of  his!  Would  like  to 
have  known  her.  Be  sure  you  read  Renan's 
"Recollections." 

Oct.  25,  '83. 

Did  you  know  Kant  wrote  some  poems 
when  young  (I  don't  know  but  later  than 
young)  ?  This  is  one :  - 

"Was  auf  das  Leben  folgt,  deckt  tiefe  Finsterniss; 
Was  uns  zu  thun  gebiihrt,  des  [sic]  sind  wir  nur  gewiss, 
Dem  kann,  wie  Lilienthal,  kein  Tod  die  Hoffnimg  rauben, 
Der  glaubt,  um  recht  zu  thun,  recht  thut,  urn  froh  zu 
glauben." 

Have  you  read  Daudet's  bit  of  reminis 
cence  of  Turgenieff  in  "Century"?  And  the 
portrait! 

If  only  men  did  n't  die  just  as  they  are  get 
ting  ripe  and  great!  Death  isn't  a  gentle 
angel.  The  old  view  is  the  true  view.  No 
flowers  can  hide  the  skull.  It  is  not  only  awful 
—  it  is  horrible  that  people  should  die. 


212  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

You  are  not  like  me  if  you  don't  find  yourself 
doubting  the  tangible  existence  of  people  when 
you  have  no  current  evidence.  (Talk  about 
belief  in  immortality:  I  find  it  hard  enough 
to  believe  in  real  being  at  all,  when  it  is  well 
around  a  corner  anywhere,  out  of  sight.  —  Still 
—  I  do  sort  o'  believe  in  immortality.  Can't 
make  myself  believe  it's  all  hereditary  pre 
possession  either.  But  whether  old  friends 
will  ever  have  time  to  find  each  other  out?) 
(Quid  metui  resurrectus  ?  Meantime  this  life  is 
enough  for  us  to  think  about.  There's  no 
doubting  we  live  now.)  .  .  . 

The  moral  of  it  all  is,  brace  up !  As  young 
Or  me  says  in"Orley  Farm  "(you  have  to  read 
two  or  three  of  Trollope  after  his  "Autobiog 
raphy"),  it  won't  do  for  a  fellow  ever  to  knock 
under.  To  himself,  you  know.  To  let  himself 
see  that  he's  afraid.  Besides,  what  is  there  to 
squelch  anybody,  in  all  these  things?  It's  an 
episode  anyhow.  —  What  '11  you  bet  we  are  not 
immortal?  In  that  case  the  whole  affair  is  only 
a  picnic  —  a  day's  excursion  —  and  no  matter 
how  it  comes  out.  To-morrow  will  have  new 
chances.  I  rather  incline  to  think  that  all  those 
people  who  die  with  no  hope  of  (or  fear  of) 
immortality  are  in  for  the  biggest  surprise  of 
their  lives. 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  213 

Jan.  4,  '84. 

You  will  like  this  winter  weather.  Remem 
ber  how  the  snow  creaks  under  foot,  in  zero- 
cold?  and  the  good  smell  of  frozen  oxygen,  and 
how  your  mustache  freezes  up,  and  how  the 
fields  of  blue-white  snow  stretch  away  every 
where,  and  Pan  retires  all  his  passions  and  emo 
tions  from  the  landscape,  and  leaves  only  pure 
intellect  —  cold  and  white  and  clear?  —  One 
ought  to  have,  though,  a  house  about  seven 
miles  square,  full  of  open  fires  and  open  friends 

-  both  kept  well  replenished  and  poked  up.  - 
I  should  like  to  see  some  of  these  winter  scenes, 
and  some  of  these  sunsets,  out  of  your  west 
window.  —  I  wish  you  a  very  happy  rest-of- 
the-year. 

You  say  you  have  written  many  times  to 
me  mentally  —  and  say  that  such  things  bring 
no  replies.  You  do  them  injustice.  Certainly 
they  do.  Only  the  replies  are  also  mental.  You 
have  had  no  end  of  such. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  OHIO,  May  12,  1884. 
DEAR  Miss  B.,  —  You  recollect  old  Geo. 
Herbert  after  a  season  of  dumps  congratu 
lates  himself  that  once  more  he  doth  "relish 
versing"  —  so  there  are  faint  symptoms  that 
now  that  the  apple  trees  are  at  last  in  blossom 
I  may  relish  writing  to  my  friends.  Alack,  I 
have  not  so  many  to  whom  I  ever  write,  or  from 


214  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

whom  I  am  ever  written  to  (I  no  longer  teach 
the  English  language),  that  I  need  wait  so  long 
to  write  at  least  a  brief  scratch.  .  .  .  The  truth 
is  I  desire  to  hear  from  you.  Otherwise  there 
are  hardly  enough  apple  trees  out  to  move  me, 
even  this  May  morning.  —  Is  it  any  wonder 
people  talk  about  the  weather?  For  what  is 
there  that  plays  the  deuce  with  us  like  that?  I 
confess  I  am  completely  under  it  half  the  time 
—  and  more  than  half  under,  the  balance.  It's 
very  pretty  now,  I  assure  you.  Treacherous,  a 
little,  but  full  of  greenery  and  blossoms.  In 
New  England,  no  doubt,  it  is  still  prettier.  In 
the  past  week  the  sky  —  even  in  Ohio  —  has 
been  summer  blue.  You  remember  what  that 
is,  between  big  round  pearly  white  clouds? 
But  for  six  months  previously  it  was  a  dome  of 
lead,  or  dirty  white.  Now  and  then,  of  a  rare 
day,  the  color  of  a  black  and  blue  spot  on  a 
boy's  knee.  Once  or  twice  in  a  month,  when 
the  sun  tried  to  shine,  the  hue  of  very  poor 
skim  milk.  The  gods  economizing,  no  doubt, 
and  taking  that  mild  drink  in  place  of  nectar  — 
or  slopping  it  around  feeding  their  cats  —  or 
the  Sky  terriers.  If  I  recollect  aright,  you  have 
midsummer  in  May,  there.  Hot  forenoons  and 
bootiful  fog  in  the  evening?  I  would  like  to 
help  you  dig  your  garden.  We  have  now  ap 
ple,  pear,  and  cherry  trees  in  blossom,  yel 
low  currant,  white  and  purple  lilacs,  flowering 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  215 

cherry:  pansies,  tulips,  lily  of  the  valley,  and 
genuine  solid  green  turf  sprinkled  with  gold 
buttons  of  dandelions.  The  air  is  full  of  fra 
grance.  The  robins,  bluebirds,  wrens,  and 
orioles  are  building  wonderful  nests  all  over 
the  place.  Three  red-and-black  game  bantams 
are  parading  on  the  lawn,  and  seven  baby  ban 
tams  about  as  big  as  the  end  of  my  thumb  are 
skittering  around  under  the  laylocs. 

That  is  a  pleasant  picture  —  "robins,  blue 
birds,  wrens  and  orioles  building  nests  all  over 
the  place,  and  bantams  parading  on  the  lawn." 
It  suggests  an  easy,  well-to-do,  comfortable 
way  of  life.  In  a  sense  this  is  a  fair  impression. 
The  home  of  his  uncle  and  father-in-law  at 
Cuyahoga  Falls  was  an  ample  house  —  the 
house  of  a  sucessful  banker  in  a  Middle  West 
ern  town.  As  to  the  household  itself,  Sill  de 
scribed  it  himself,  in  a  little  unsigned  article 
for  the  "Atlantic"  on  "The  Cheerfulness  of 
Birds,"  with  a  fulness  of  detail  from  which  he 
would  probably  have  shrunk  if  he  had  not  felt 
sure  that  both  his  own  identity  and  that  of  the 
household  were  safe  from  surmise :  — 

We  are,  at  our  house,  I  confess,  a  rather  sombre 
family.  There  are  no  young  children  among  us. 
The  elderly  people  are  silent  by  temperament,  and 
grow  more  silent  as  age  comes  on.  There  is  never 
any  ill-temper  in  the  house,  —  never  any  bickering 


216  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

or  nagging,  no  spiteful  epigrams  or  sidelong  sar 
casms.  We  seem  really  to  like  each  other,  although 
we  are  all  "blood-relations."  We  get  on,  therefore, 
from  year  to  year.  No  doubt  we  seem  to  others  a 
happy  family,  and  perhaps  we  are;  but  we  are  never 
a  merry  family.  The  house  is  so  built  that  the  rooms 
where  the  sun  shines  liberally  are  not  the  rooms 
most  used;  not  the  rooms,  for  example,  that  we  are 
accustomed  to  use  together.  The  heating  apparatus 
is  that  most  successful  and  most  lugubrious  one  — 
steam.  The  radiators  are  large  black  surfaces,  with 
just  enough  of  gilt  at  edge  and  corner  to  make  the 
black  hopelessly  conspicuous,  flattening  themselves 
against  the  wall  as  if  they  were  aware  of  their  ugli 
ness.  No  blazing  and  sparkling  and  cheerily  snap 
ping  open  fire  illuminates  any  of  the  "  living"  rooms. 
(The  kitchen  is  the  most  cheerful  place  in  the  house, 
—  as  I  have  occasionally  seen  it,  empty  and  de 
serted,  after  the  cook  and  the  maid  had  retired  at 
night,  —  with  the  rich  hot  coals  still  sending  out 
their  rays  merrily  through  chink  and  crevice  of  the 
range,  for  the  sole  benefit  of  the  house-cat,  stretched 
out  with  full  abandon  on  the  toasting-hot  hearth.) 
Our  deplorable  habit,  at  meals,  is  to  attend  to  the 
business  in  hand  with  grave  decorum  —  very  de 
cently  and  in  order,  no  doubt,  but  for  the  most 
part  silently.  I  have  known  some  one  of  us,  ap 
parently  for  the  moment  sensible  of  something  op 
pressive  in  this  gravity,  to  venture  on  a  frivolous 
remark,  and  to  have  it  received  in  silence,  as  a  thing 
not  congruous  with  the  roast  meat,  especially  dur 
ing  the  solemn  action  of  its  being  carved  and  dis 
tributed.  We  come  down  to  breakfast  not  at  all 
out  of  humor  (we  are  not  invalids),  but  disposed 
to  a  very  calm  and  peaceful  demeanor.  We  wish 
each  other  good-morning  with  a  genuine  affection, 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  217 

but  the  remark,  having  been  responded  to,  is  not 
followed  up.  An  observation  concerning  the  weather 
does  not  usually  lead  anywhere.  When  we  have 
a  more  lively  visitor,  we  easily  fall  in  with  his  mood, 
and  are  capable  of  a  good  deal  of  sprightliness  on 
such  an  occasion,  —  not  in  the  least  labored  or  af 
fected,  either;  but  by  ourselves  we  are  habitually 
silent,  and  occupied  with  our  own  sedate  reflec 
tions. 

All  this  makes  —  I  cannot  but  see  it  and  feel  it, 
much  as  I  myself  share  in  the  responsibility  —  a 
sombre  house. 

But  there  is  one  bright  spot,  and  that  furnishes 
the  text  of  my  utterances  now  upon  the  subject. 
It  is  the  tame  canary,  "  Johnny-quil."  Not  only  is 
he  himself  always  cheerful  (and  who  ever  saw  a  well 
canary  depressed?),  but  he  is  the  cause  of  cheerful 
ness  in  others.  In  the  midst  of  one  of  our  long  si 
lences  we  hear  his  little  pipe  ringing  out  from  his 
sunny  eyrie  in  the  porch  or  the  sitting-room,  and 
some  one  remarks,  "Just  hear  Johnny-quil!"  Our 
barometers  all  go  up  ten  degrees.  Besides,  every 
body  chirrups  to  him.  It  is  not  only,  therefore, 
what  he  says  to  us,  but  what  we  say  to  him,  that 
makes  him  the  enlivener  of  the  family.  You  can't 
exactly  chirrup  to  a  grown-up  human  being,  — 
especially  if  he  is  carving  a  fowl,  or  reading  a  re 
ligious  newspaper.  But  it  is  always  possible,  and 
apparently  always  inevitable,  to  say  something 
chipper  and  chirpy  to  the  bird,  as  we  pass  his  cage. 
I  have  noticed  this  odd  thing:  that  when  Rhodora 
or  Penelope  or  Cassandra  stops  at  the  cage,  and 
says  some  little  nonsensical  thing  to  the  small  yel 
low  songster,  or  half  whistles  to  him  in  passing,  not 
only  does  he  pipe  up,  but  pretty  soon  you  hear  her 
own  voice,  from  a  distant  room,  humming  a  bit  of 


218  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

some  gay  waltz  or  madrigal.  The  unconscious  lifting 
of  one's  own  more  sober  mood  to  the  higher  level 
of  the  bird's  irrepressible  good  spirits  lasts  on  a 
little  beyond  the  instant.  I  recommend  him  and  his 
merry  kind  to  other  silent  houses.  He  is  worth  his 
weight  in  sunshine. 

The  setting,  so  to  speak,  for  the  house  we 
shall  also  get  from  Sill,  in  a  few  sentences  from 
another  of  his  intimate  little  essays  for  the 
"Atlantic,"  a  picture  of  the  first  snow:  — 

Yesterday  the  maples  and  oaks  and  the  great 
round-topped  linden  on  the  lawn  were  still  full  of 
their  wealth  of  color.  There  it  lies  now  on  the  snow, 
—  smouldering  reds  and  yellows,  burning  with 
dusky  blushes  on  (not  in,  as  ordinarily)  the  level 
floor  of  the  white  cold. 

The  prettiest  thing,  however,  in  this  particular 
case  of  the  first  snow,  is  the  way  its  softness,  early 
in  the  night,  caused  it  to  stick  fast,  silvering  the 
windward  side  of  every  object.  Not  only  are  the 
firs  deep  loaded,  the  lower  boughs  weighted  and 
banked  till  each  tree  is,  from  the  ground  up,  a 
continuous  tent  of  snow,  but  the  trunks  and  every 
round  limb  and  forking  twig  of  the  elms  and  oaks 
are  puffed  with  fleckless  white.  It  makes  of  them  a 
vivid  kind  of  crayon  sketch:  every  bough  has  its 
dark  shadow  away  from  the  sun,  and  its  white  high 
light  toward  the  wind.  The  gate-posts  are  capped 
high  with  the  rounded  ermine. 

The  little  wren-house  on  the  stub  of  the  dead  pear 
tree  is  piled  thick  to  windward,  and  fringed  with 
icicles  on  the  eaves  to  leeward,  like  the  abodes  of  all 
the  rest  of  us.  Across  the  river,  on  the  crown  of  the 
slope,  stands  a  straight  high  wall  of  woods.  It  is  a 


MAN  OF  LETTERS  219 

reversed  drawing  in  charcoal;  all  the  tops,  the  soft 
mass  of  bare  boughs  and  twigs,  being  shaded  dark, 
while  the  stems  of  the  tall  hickories  and  oaks  stand 
forth  white  as  marble  columns,  and  on  the  smooth 
snow  of  the  lawn  stands  a  slender  upright  wand, 
left  solitary  in  the  deserted  tennis-court,  where  it 
supported  the  net  in  the  middle. 


VIII 

THE   CRAFTSMAN 

IN  the  pleasant  surroundings  just  described, 
having  "established  a  writing-table  with  the 
birds  contiguous,"  and  a  "favorite  pacing- 
ground,  a  wide  path  from  the  round  rose-bed 
to  the  elm  tree,  running  between  lines  of  stately 
cannas,"  he  continued  at  his  writing.  He  might 
poke  fun  at  it  as  he  did,  —  "I  am  supposed  to 
be  entered  upon  a  mad  career  of  literary  work. 
Have  so  far  only  written  some  very  mild  verses," 
etc.,  —  but  in  his  heart  he  knew  it  to  be  as 
serious  a  matter  as  anything  had  ever  been  to 
him.  In  some  respects  the  conditions  at  Cuya- 
hoga  Falls  were  all  that  could  be  desired,  but 
those  that  were  lacking  were  terribly  signifi 
cant.  First  and  foremost  was  the  lack  of  atmo 
sphere  and  companionship.  He  had  "no  man 
like-minded  with  him."  There  was  not  a  fellow- 
craftsman  within  five  hundred  miles  who  shared 
his  ambitions  and  with  whom  he  could  talk  over 
his  plans ;  moreover,  he  was  far  removed  from 
the  main  currents  of  literary  activity  —  such 
as  it  was  in  this  country.  That  he  should  have 
been  able  under  these  conditions  to  produce  as 
much  both  in  poetry  and  prose  as  he  did  and 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  221 

tp  keep  the  flame  in  the  shrine  ablaze  is  an 
achievement.  Yet  it  may  explain  why  in  the 
five  years  between  leaving  Berkeley  and  his 
death  he  planned  and  executed  no  work  of  sub 
stantial  proportions.  A  letter  to  Miss  Shinn, 
then  editing  the  "Overland  Monthly,"  throws 
light  on  a  frame  of  mind  which  was  recurrent 
rather  than  permanent,  but  which  shows  the 
effect  of  being  in  a  back-water  —  and  a  touch 
of  his  inveterate  self -distrust :  - 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  OHIO,  Aug.  16,  1884. 
SATUBDAY. 

I  sent  you  yesterday  a  pretty  long  screed 
about  Emerson,  telling  you  to  use  the  whole  of 
it,  or  part  of  it,  or  very  little  of  it,  or  none  at 
all  of  it.  I  should  be  equally  well  suited  either 
way. 

I  don't  think  other  people  feel  the  way  I 
do  about  that.  When  a  thing  is  written,  they 
have  a  trembling  hope,  at  least,  that  it  is  good, 
and  anyhow  wish  to  have  it  used.  But  you 
should  see  the  equanimity  with  which  I  write 
thing  after  thing  —  both  prose  and  verse  — 
and  stow  them  away,  never  sending  them  any 
where,  or  thinking  of  printing  any  book  of 
them,  at  present,  if  ever.  Sometimes  I  do  think 
I  will  leave  a  lot  of  stuff  for  some  one  to  pick 
out  a  post-humorous  volume  from  —  but  more 
and  more  my  sober  judgment  tells  me  that 


£22  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

other  people  have  seen  or  will  see  all  that  I 
have,  and  will  state  it  better. 

It  is  very  strange,  though,  the  difference  be 
tween  my  positiveness  of  judgment  as  to  other 
people's  writing  and  my  lack  of  any  power 
to  judge  at  all  of  my  own.  It  would,  perhaps, 
be  an  interesting  psychological  study  for  you 
if  I  could  make  you  see  my  mind  about  this. 
I  judge  swiftly  and  positively  of  literature  in 
general.  For  one  thing,  the  consciousness  has 
more  and  more  been  ground  into  me  that  my 
whole  point  of  view  is  hopelessly  different  from 
that  of  people  in  general  —  I  mean  educated 
and  intelligent  people.  Nor  do  I  have  the  com 
pensation  of  feeling  this  difference  a  superiority. 
I  should  have  made  an  excellent  citizen  of  some 
other  planet,  maybe,  and  they  got  me  on  the 
wrong  one. 

I  don't  feel  the  least  fitness  for  a  writer. 
When  anything  of  mine  is  to  be  printed  I  have 
often  a  horrid  sense  —  now  the  fingers  of  the 
whole  universe  will  be  pointing  at  this  fellow 
as  an  example  of  a  wretch  that  has  mistaken 
his  vocation.  When  it  is  once  printed,  I  feel  in 
stantly  relieved,  in  the  knowledge  that  nobody 
reads  things  —  after  all — or  cares  whether  they 
are  good  or  not.  The  fingers  I  perceive  to  be  all 
pointing  at  more  conspicuous  objects,  or  being 
harmlessly  sucked  in  the  mouth:  so  I  don't 
care  a  bit  —  till  the  next  thing  is  about  to  be 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  223 

printed.  The  "Century  "  has  had  some  time  a 
sonnet  of  mine.  You  would  not  believe  how  I 
have  actually  shuddered  internally  each  month 
with  fear  that  now  I  am  going  to  be  stuck  up  on 
a  post  without  a  rag  on  me  at  last,  and  my 
nightmare  was  to  come  true. 

I  don't  believe  I  ever  shall  write  a  thing 
that  is  really  good.  Yet,  with  it  all,  I  have 
unbounded  conceit  of  my  own  judgment  about 
the  things  I  feel  I  see  clearly. 

Queer,  queer  fellows  we  all  are.  Must  be 
fun  for  the  bigger  fellows  that  hide  in  the  clouds 
and  watch  us. 

Yours  —  and  I  'd  like  to  hear  how  you  are. 

E.  R.  S. 

The  letters  show  his  increasing  preoccupa 
tion  with  pen  and  ink.  He  might  say  what  he 
liked  about  teaching  being  his  real  business  in 
life:  he  took  to  the  writer's  trade  like  a  duck  to 
water :  — 

"Yes,  I  could  do  the  review,  but  it  might 
not  suit  your  public.  I  haven't  the  habit  of  that 
sort  of  judicial  tone,  so  called  and  considered, 
which  consists  in  thinking  one  man  about 
as  good  as  another,  and  in  showing  wherein 
everybody  is  mediocre  and  not  quite  so  excel 
lent  as  somebody  else  (who  would  in  turn  be 
proved  mediocre  if  being  reviewed).  ..." 

"I  would  rather  take  a  hand  in  a  collection 


224  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

of  French  translations  than  German,  for  my 
part.  For  I  am  coming  to  believe  the  Germans 
an  unpoetic  people  —  even  their  greatest  poets 
are  pretty  wordy  and  dull  and  clumsy.  But 
there  is  a  school  of  modern  French  poets  worth 
translating.  I  have  been  doing  some  of  Sully 
Prudhomme,  for  instance.  It  is  —  to  the  Ger 
mans  —  as  cloud-fluff  to  cheese.  Or  as  the 
violin  to  the  horse-fiddle.  ..." 

He  continued  the  argument  in  a  graceful 
essay  in  little  for  the  "Atlantic":  — 

"  Perhaps  the  best  topics  on  which  to  feel  the 
difference  are  those  two  immemorial  inspirers 
of  song,  war  and  love.  When  the  German  poet 
sings  of  war,  it  is  with  the  solemnity  of  Korner's 
'Gebet  Wahrend  der  Schlact.'  When  the 
French  poet  sings  of  it,  it  is  with  the  *Gai! 
Gai!'  of  Beranger.  In  the  one,  you  hear  the 
heavy  tread  of  men,  a  dull,  regular  beat,  which, 
after  all,  is  not  very  distinguishable  to  the  ear, 
as  to  whether  it  be  an  advancing  column  or  a 
funeral  march.  In  the  other  you  hear  only  the 
bugles  ringing  and  shouts  of  enthusiasm  and 
excitement. 

"In  their  treatment  of  love  there  is  even 
sharper  contrast.  The  German  word  Hebe  has 
quite  a  different  atmosphere  of  suggestion 
from  the  French  amour.  The  German  poet  sings 
of  love  and  home;  you  feel  that  there  is  at  least 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  225 

a  possibility  that  the  passion  of  to-day  will 
outlast  the  year,  or  the  years.  Constancy  is  one 
of  its  very  elements.  When  the  French  poet 
sings  of  love,  it  is  very  delicate,  rosy,  beautiful, 
but  we  do  not  hear  of  home." 

"Am  hurried  just  now.  Have  a  manuscript 
story  of  an  author-in-posse  to  examine  and  (I 
fear)  to  criticise  to  pieces,  an  article  to  write 
for  the  Tall  Mall'  .  .  .  and  a  book  to  review  for 
the  'Nation,'  which  they  have  just  sent  me: 
besides  being  awfully  in  arrears  in  correspond 
ence.  The  spirit  of  writing  letters  has  not 
moved  my  ink-waters  for  a  long  while.  My 
friends  (few  enough  at  the  best)  must  all  be 
disgruntled  at  my  silence.  -  -  is  the  best  man 
about  that.  He  writes  without  regard  to  my 
sins  of  omission.  He  knows  I  don't  change  my 
animwn  with  my  ccelum.  ..." 

"...  I  am  suspicious  of  eccentric  people,  as  a 
rule,  moreover.  And  the  fag  end  of  a  famous 
family  is  never  wholly  satisfactory:  the  be 
ginnings  of  good  blood  are  better  than  the  thin 
lees.  Each  generation  pours  fresh  water  on  the 
same  old  tea-leaves  of  genius,  and  it  gets  very 
weak.  .  .  .  Did  you  ever  look  at  Galton's 
'Faculty'?  Interesting  book.  ...  He  gives 
some  copies  of  composite  photographs.  I  have 
been  trying  lapping  one  over  another  with  the 
stereoscope  and  it  works  beautifully.  .  .  . 
McGahan's  'Campaign  against  Khiva'  is  a 


226  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

good  book  to  read  at  some  odd  moments,  for 
distracting  the  mind.  I've  taken  to  travels 
again  lately.  ...  I  am  in  the  midst  of  George 
Sand's  'Histoire  de  ma  Vie.'  You  must  read 
it.  It  is  great.  We  have  to  take  her  right  in. 
She  is  a  beautiful  mugwump.  Decidedly  you 
must  get  up  your  French. 

"This  man  Flaubert  I  must  find  out  more 
about.  If  George  Sand  (at  sixty-two)  loved 
him  so  much  at  sixty-five,  he  must  have  been 
something. 

"I  like  to  find  in  such  histories,  that  people 
can  love  when  they  are  sixty,  or  seventy,  or 
eighty.  It  is  all  life  till  love  goes." 

Random  flashes  of  self-disclosure  light  up 
the  letters,  and  a  few  passages  here  and  there 
show  his  moods  toward  the  end  of  1884 :  — 

"Heweis's  *  Musical  Memories'  has  a  number 
of  good  things :  among  others  account  of  Wag 
ner's  Trilogy  —  descriptive,  not  so  deep  as 
most  of  'em.  Oh,  the  idiots  that  write  about 
great  men  —  we  idiots?  Horrendum! 

"Derelictum  —  but  I  haven't  yet  looked 
into  Morley  on  Emerson.  I  do  so  hate  all  I  see 
about  'most  anybody.  Let  a  man  write  about 
himself.  It 's  the  only  fellow  he  knows  anything 
about.  .  .  . 

"...  I  want  to  write  to  you  about  a  lot  of 
things,  but  I  hate  to  use  pen  and  ink.  An  Eng- 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  227 

lishman  is  said  to  have  invented  an  addition  to 
the  telephone  which  writes  out  your  message 
for  you  on  paper.  Why  not  every  fellow  talk 
his  article  or  letter  into  it,  and  not  use  pen? 
We're  coming  to  it  —  but  *  slowly,  slowly,' 
and  we  *  wither  on  the  shore'  (if  that's  it). 
Browning  is  great.  Ever  read  his  *  Pauline'? 
Early  poem,  but  things  in  it.  ... 

"I  never  could  see  how  any  one  past  twenty 
could  reminisce  —  to  other  ears,  or  to  their 
own.  The  past  seems  so  full  of  mistakes  and 
follies  and  infelicities  both  from  the  without 
and  the  within.  —  Besides :  what  need  to  can 
the  old  dead  sea  fruit  —  there  is  always  a  fresh 
day  ready  to  pick  off  the  tree  Yggdrasill.  Time 
has  a  kind  of  tart  fresh  flavor  that  I  always 
like  when  picked  fresh  —  but  others  may  have 
all  the  preserves  of  that  fruit.  .  .  ." 

The  series  of  letters  to  Aldrich  reveals  a  grow 
ing  regard  which  deepened  as  the  acquaintance 
went  on.  Both  were  poets  and  craftsmen  who 
loved  "the  tool's  true  play."  The  letter  to  Holt 
comes  in  not  inappropriately. 

To  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  July  29,  1884. 
MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  You    are    very  kind    to 
make  these  suggestions  apropos  of  my  returned 
paper  on  "Studies."  Perhaps  I  will  try  to  pre- 


228  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

pare  such  an  article  as  you  have  in  mind,  some 
day.  There  is  much  in  what  you  say  concern 
ing  better  methods  in  the  humane  studies.  I 
wish  you  would  yourself  write  on  that.  You 
are  no  doubt  right  in  refusing  this  manuscript. 
I  know  it  is  very  true,  but  your  judgment  shakes 
my  faith  in  its  useful  or  suitable  form;  so  that 
I  shall  not  send  it  elsewhere,  but  try  again  for 
you  at  some  future  time,  unless  some  one  else 
states  the  thing  better. 

I  had  sent  two  poems  before  receiving  your 
note.  I  shall  be  doing  that  from  time  to  time, 
and  wish  you  to  send  them  back  when  you 
don't  want  them  —  with  the  impersonal  printed 
slip;  for  if  I  thought  you  were  to  be  put  to  the 
trouble  of  writing  I  should  not  feel  free  to 
send. 

You  understand,  I  don't  send  my  things 
about.  I  have,  to  be  sure,  sent  to  the  "Cen 
tury,"  rarely;  in  fact  they  have  a  weak  sonnet 
of  mine  now  whose  appearance  I  have  been 
dreading  monthly  for  half  a  year  or  more,  and 
which  I  ought  not  to  have  signed.  And  I  give 
the  "Overland"  something,  now  and  then,  from 
patriotism  and  admiration  of  Miss  Shinn's 
heroic  efforts  to  keep  her  magazine  afloat  out 
there. 

I  am  rather  ashamed  of  sending  you  things 
you  don't  want,  but  I  have  no  friendly  sage  at 
hand  to  help  me  judge  of  my  things,  and  I  can't 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  229 

tell  myself.    So  I  have  to  send  and  trouble 
you. 

Thanking  you  again  for  your  friendliness, 
Sincerely  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Oct.  7,  1884. 
Will  you  tell  me  whether  you  would  rather 
have  more  than  one  poem  from  a  man  at  a  time, 
or  not?  I  mean  if  they  are  acceptable  poems. 
That  is  to  say,  do  you  like  to  have  on  hand 
accepted  poems  in  advance  from  a  writer  of  so 
small  fame  as  myself,  or  not?  If  I  knew  what  the 
supply  was,  I  should  be  able  to  judge  for  my 
self;  but  really  I  have  always  been  at  a  loss  to 
know  what  you  would  prefer.  As  the  "Atlantic  " 
is  the  only  place  I  really  care  to  print,  and  as 
I  send  very  rarely  anywhere  else,  it  would  be 
convenient  for  me  to  have  a  hint  from  you  on 
this  point. 

Truly  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Sept.  26,  1884. 
This  picture  is  true  to  the  great  Redwood 
forests  of  California.  Perhaps  it  would  not  seem 
untrue  to  the  Eastern  pine  woods,  as  well.    It 
was  pencilled  down  in  the  actual  forest,  though 
only  just  now  "written." 
Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 


230  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  Oct.  22,  '84. 

DEAR  H ,  —  I  send  an  article  on  Emer 
son,  good  quotation  for  these  times  on  one  page 
(leaf  turned  down).  I  shall  vote  for  Cleveland, 
but  I  don't  like  such  a  Hobson's  choice.  Vide 
November  "Atlantic"  Contributors'  Club  for 
some  French  translations  of  mine.  I  only  dared 
say  what  I  do  about  German  poetry  under  the 
fiction  of  a  friend  who  thinks  so.  I  still  think 
a  volume  of  French  translations  would  be  a 
good  venture.  I  shall  want  to  see  and  read  the 
German  one  when  it  is  published,  for  of  course 
I  know  well  enough  there  is  some  grand  poetry 
in  German. 

I  will  not  say  anything  about  Frank's1 
death.  As  Williams  wrote  me  (announcing  it 
in  five  lines)  "there  is  nothing  to  be  said." 
These  things  are  getting  to  seem  "life"  to  us 
now  —  which  once  looked  to  be  something 
different. 

Ever  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

1  Francis  E.  Kernochan,  founder  of  the  Red  Room  Club  in 
New  York,  from  which  grew  the  University  Club.  If  there 
was  any  sort  of  honest  man  that,  at  the  outset  of  his  college 
life,  Sill  liked  less  than  any  other  sort,  it  was  the  polished  New 
Yorker,  and  Kernochan  was  this  ad  unguem,  and  there  never 
was  a  better  gentleman.  Sill  grew  to  appreciate  him,  and  he, 
William  H.  Fuller,  the  well-known  art  connoisseur,  who  died 
in  New  York  about  1895,  and  Stanford  Newell,  U.S.  Minister 
to  The  Hague  at  the  time  of  the  First  Conference  and  a  mem 
ber  of  it,  were  the  classmates  probably  next  to  those  often 
mentioned  in  the  text  in  intimacy  with  Sill. 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  231 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Nov.  27,  '84. 

MY  DEAR  EDITOR,  —  I  send  one  other  ver 
sion  of  the  sonnet,  and  the  final  one,  I  prom 
ise  you.  I  did  not  quite  like  the  "Chateau  in 
Spain,"  for  while  its  mood  was  congruous 
enough  if  one  understood  her  to  say  it  with 
some  bitterness,  —  which  would  account  for 
such  a  colloquial  phrase,  —  this  might  be  too 
much  of  a  subtlety  for  the  hasty  reader,  and  we 
must  suppose  all  our  readers  to  be  hasty? 

It  would  be  a  fine  retort  to  make  to  me  — 
"Allans  done,  oh,  come  now!  when  you  get 
your  things  to  suit  you  send  them,  but  don't 
bother  me  so  much."  I  will  understand  it  to 
be  made,  and  try  to  be  better  in  future. 

I  enclose  a  fresh  sonnet  as  apology  for  this 
note.  Take  either  version  of  the  other,  or  send 
back  both  that  and  this  if  you  like. 
Sincerely  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

"I  like  the  anonymousness  of  the  Contribu 
tors'  Club.  Would  you  not  as  soon  print  poems 
for  me  unsigned?  ...  I  like  very  much  this 
hammering  at  a  poem  when  (as  has  too  seldom 
happened)  I  have  a  criticism  that  is  worth  any 
thing,  to  suggest  it  to  me. 

"I  should  like  it  if  I  could  talk  over  poetic 
forms  with  you,  by  word  of  mouth,  some 
time." 


232  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

He  opens  the  year  1885  with  a  dithyrambic 
outburst  on  the  weather  and  the  landscape, 
shot  through  with  his  ineradicable  scientific 
curiosity  —  this  time  about  the  reasons  for  the 
cylindrical  structure  of  ice  formations  on  the 
branches  and  twigs  of  trees :  — 

Jan.  18,  1885. 

It  would  be  the  greatest  Christmas  card 
you  ever  saw  if  I  could  send  you  a  look  at  our 
world  this  morning:  mercury,  1°  below  zero; 
ground,  no  ground  at  all  —  but  a  sheet  of  ice- 
crusted  snow  everywhere;  every  shrub  and  tree 
a  little  cylinder  of  ice.  The  sun  is  on  it  now, 
and  the  wind  wags  everything  (not  "waves," 
because  all  is  stiff  in  the  ice-armor.  It  is 
strange  to  see  the  awkward  swaying  of  the  elm- 
boughs,  as  if  drunk,  and  staggering  about),  and 
everything  glitters,  with  points  of  fire  —  cold 
fire  (like  Tennyson's  stars,  in  "Maud")  that 
comes  and  goes  incessantly.  Why  am  I  not  out 
looking  at  it?  Because  I  went  out  and  fed  my 
chickens,  put  hot  water  in  their  frozen  crock, 
got  straw  from  the  barn  and  filled  one  end  of 
their  day-house,  as  foot- warmer  for  them, 
stared  around  awhile,  and  got  enough  of  it. 
Zero  weather  nips  the  human  nose  and  ears, 
when  these  have  been  mollified  by  ten  years  of 
California  and  more. 

C.  F.  (the   same   that  I  was   writing  this 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  233 

morning  —  for  it  is  still  Sunday,  Jan.  18,  '85  — 
except  that  the  sun  has  gone  down  and  taken 
the  glitter  with  it,  though  it  has  left  all  the  ice). 
It  shone  hard  as  ever  it  could  all  day,  but  made 
no  more  impression  on  the  ice-armor  of  the 
trees  than  if  it  had  been  moonlight.  I  said  this 
morning,  in  my  state  of  crude  ignorance,  that 
each  twig  was  surrounded  by  a  cylinder  of  ice. 
I  have  taken  two  walks  since,  one  of  them  into 
the  woods  down  the  river,  and  know  more  than 
I  did  —  like  the  boy  that  the  mule  kicked.  I 
find  that  the  ice  has  made  a  cylinder  on  the  top 
of  each  lateral  (or  slanting)  twig,  fastened  to  it 
along  a  narrow  line  only.  That  is  to  say,  the 
twig  is  more  than  two  thirds  free  of  the  ice.  On 
vertical  twigs  and  branches,  it  is  on  the  lee 
ward  side.  It  is  a  case  for  Professor  John  Le 
Conte.  I  cannot  understand  it.  The  ice-cylin 
der  is  one-fourth  inch  diameter  on  one-eighth 
inch  twigs.  Little  terminal  clusters  of  maple 
buds  have  small  globes  of  ice  around  them. 
Any  weed  that  has  pendent  seeds  or  berries 
left,  has  now  diamond  drops.  The  grasses  that 
stick  up  through  the  crusted  snow  (all  glairy 
like  ice)  have  ice-cylinders  on  the  leeward  side, 
sometimes  one-fourth  inch  on  mere  threads, 
and  always  attached  only  by  a  line  on  one  side, 
occasionally  even  skipping  for  a  little  space, 
and  not  touching  the  grass.  Some  grasses 
stand  up  thus  [sketch]  broken  and  pendent. 


234  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

The  ice  has  made  long  drops  on  every  thread 
and  seed.  One  field  of  delicate  weed-stuff  (dried 
and  frozen,  left  standing  from  last  fall)  was  a 
wilderness  of  glitter  —  a  mimic  "glittering 
heath"  of  Morris's  "Sigurd."  All  this  ice- 
work,  by  the  way,  is  perfectly  pure,  transpar 
ent  crystal.  You  know  how  finely  divided  an 
elm's  ultimate  twiglets  are,  when  bare?  Imag 
ine  each  one  sheeted  in  this  crystal  and  every 
one  a  separate  thread  of  white  fire  in  the  sun, 
and  glittering  in  the  wind.  One  street  is  set 
alone  with  such  elms,  arching  over  into  maples 
on  the  other  side,  and  you  can  picture  the  vista 
it  makes.  If  you  meet  Dr.  John,  .  .  .  ask  him 
what  he  makes  of  horizontal  icicles,  laid  along 
the  tops  of  twigs,  just  touching  them. 

It  is  curious  to  see  how  much  the  matter  of 
signature  —  that  is,  of  publicity,  bothered  Sill 
in  his  writing.  He  was  perhaps  supersensitive, 
unduly  self-conscious;  but  if  that  is  granted, 
the  reason  doubtless  lies  not  so  much  in  his 
temperamental  "  skinlessness,"  as  in  the  nature 
of  the  writing  into  which  he  found  himself 
drawn.  There  was  no  solid  block  of  work  — 
biography,  history,  treatise  or  textbook  —  set 
or  suggested  to  him.  He  found  a  demand  and 
a  market  for  one  sort  of  thing,  fortunately  or 
not,  the  lyric  and  the  personal  essay.  He  was 
thrown  back  upon  himself:  he  must  perforce 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  235 

"  look  in  his  heart  and  write."  To  keep  his 
countenance  he  would  fain  keep  hidden  so  far 
as  he  might.  His  excuse  for  preoccupation 
with  the  matter  is  complete,  "but  if  writing  or 
printing  verse  is  a  serious  or  important  matter 
at  all,  of  course  this  is  serious  and  important  to 
me."  He  writes  to  Aldrich:  — 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Jan.  20,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  May  I  ask  you  about  a 
very  personal  matter.  You  know  it  is  a  com 
mon  experience  that  men  have  some  mood  — 
either  a  thing  that  properly  belongs  back  some 
where  in  past  years,  and  recurs  as  a  memory,  or 
one  that  pounces  suddenly  in  on  a  life  where  it 
does  n't  belong,  and  goes  again  —  a  mood  that 
he  expresses  in  verse  —  perhaps  exorcises  by 
doing  so.  He  does  not  wish  to  put  his  name  to 
any  such  thing,  and  have  his  tailor  or  his  den 
tist  confer  with  him  about  it  the  next  day,  and 
yet  it  may  seem  a  thing  that  is  human  enough 
to  be  worth  putting  in  print.  Why  should  not  a 
man  therefore  assume  a  nom  de  plume  (plume 
de  vie)  to  be  used  for  certain  writing?  As  if 
Mr.  Dick  in  "David  Copperfield"  had  signed 
his  sane  writing  "Dick,"  and  his  accounts  of 
Charles  I's  head  "lunadick." 

You  said  you  did  not  wish  to  print  in  the 
"Atlantic"  any  anonymous  poems  (by  the 
way,  I  should  like  much  to  see  more  ones  there 


236  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL1 

since  you  told  me  of  your  own  relation  to 
them). 

It  may  be  said  —  but  a  man  would  be  in 
danger  of  printing  (or  offering  for  print)  things 
that  he  would  have  made  better  if  his  own 
name  were  to  go  with  them.  No,  I  think  not. 
If  he  had  a  permanent  mask  he  would  be  more 
sensitive  about  this  even  than  his  own  proper 
face,  and  would  do  his  best  for  it. 

I  wonder  if  this  is  not  done  more  often  than 
people  suspect. 

For  example,  I  send  three  things,  signing  a 
name  I  have  evolved  from  my  inner  conscious 
ness.  And  one  with  my  own  name.  If  you  can 
find  a  leisure  moment,  sometime  —  at  your 
convenience  —  will  you  tell  me  what  you 
think  about  this  matter  of  the  mask? 

The  poems,  of  course,  may  come  back  with 
out  your  being  at  any  trouble  about  them,  if 
they  do  not  seem  available. 

Sincerely  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Jan.  25,  1885. 
MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  Let  me  add  a  word  about 
the  mask  or  "nom  de  guerre99  question.  It  has 
just  occurred  to  me  that  you  may  be  under  the 
impression  (as  I  find  a  number  of  acquaint 
ances  are)  that  I  have  published  a  volume  of 
poems.  The  little  collection  which  I  privately 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  237 

printed  two  years  ago  was  noticed  among  some 
"recent  poetry"  in  one  or  two  magazines 
(though  I  did  not  send  them  anywhere  for 
review)  and  so  the  impression  got  abroad  that 
it  had  been  published.  Now,  if  you  supposed 
me  to  have  thus  claimed  a  place  among  the 
poets  and  failed  to  get  it,  you  might  possibly 
interpret  my  wish  to  print  poems  over  a  mask 
name,  as  that  most  absurd  of  things  —  the 
effort  to  retrieve  under  a  mask,  a  failure  of  the 
open  face.  No,  it  is  far  from  being  that  ridicu 
lous  motive  —  impossible  in  any  case,  as  I  have 
never  made  any  effort  to  make  my  own  name 
known.  (I  did  publish  a  small  volume  when  a 
boy  —  of  poor  stuff  —  out  of  print  years  ago.) 
My  motive  is  what  I  mentioned  to  you 
before;  and  another  thing  —  half  fantastic  you 
might  think  it  —  which  cannot  be  very  well 
explained  to  any  one  at  present.  Pardon  me 
for  thus  forcing  my  personal  affair  on  your 
time  and  attention.  But  if  writing  or  printing 
verse  is  a  serious  or  important  matter  at  all,  of 
course  this  is  serious  and  important  to  me.  And 
your  courtesy  to  me  hitherto  has  tempted  me 
into  speaking  of  it  to  you. 

Sincerely  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

Meantime  a  matter  of  larger  moment  looms 
up.  Holt  asks  if  he  would  consider  returning  to 


238  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

the  academic  world  under  conditions  which 
surely  at  an  earlier  day  would  have  made  the 
strongest  of  appeals  to  him;  namely,  to  teach 
English  at  Yale.  There  is  no  evidence  that 
the  Yale  authorities  were  behind  the  question. 
Mr.  Holt  has  no  recollection  that  they  were. 
It  was  only  a  desire  on  the  part  of  a  friend  of 
the  man  and  the  institution  to  see  them  to 
gether.  But  now  it  probably  seemed  to  Sill 
too  late.  He  states  his  own  reasons;  behind 
what  is  said  we  may  discern  signs  of  the  conflict 
then  raging  between  the  "scientific"  and  the 
"humanistic"  wings  in  the  faculties  of  Ameri 
can  colleges.  Sill  was  probably  wise  in  wishing 
to  avoid  that  strife.  As  to  the  "plain  duty"  to 
which  he  refers,  that  appears  to  have  been  the 
obligation  to  watch  over  the  health  of  one  of 
the  members  of  the  household. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Jan.  23,  '85. 

DEAR  HENRY  [HOLT],  —  Yours  of  the  21st 
received.  Thank  you  for  answer  to  my  ques 
tion. 

As  to  whether  I  would  accept  a  certain 
offer,  if  made :  —  there  would  be  two  very  seri 
ous  obstacles.  First,  that  I  am  not  the  man,  in 
several  important  respects,  to  fill  the  place 
well.  I  know  the  sort  of  man  it  requires,  and  I 
am  not  the  one.  Second,  that  I  could  not  leave 
here  at  present.  My  plain  duty  is  right  here 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  239 

and  it  would  never  do  to  run  away  from  it. 
Very  good  of  you  to  think  of  such  a  thing.  .  .  . 
A  man  for  that  place  should  be  picked  out  by 
his  enemies,  not  his  friends.  There  is  a  great 
opportunity  there. 

As  ever, 

Yours. 

A  few  days  later  he  writes  again :  - 
"Neither  ought  I  to  give  you  the  impression 
that  the  religious  question  is  my  only  reason 
for  not  encouraging  any  effort  to  have  me 
selected  at  Yale  for  the  vacant  chair.  .  .  . 
Again,  I  would  be  sorry  if  I  had  made  you 
suppose  that  I  am  one  of  those  bull-headed 
enthusiasts  who  wishes  to  foist  his  own  hobby 
into  every  company.  I  remember  one  of  my 
students,  since  graduating,  giving  me  warm 
praise  for  the  delicacy  I  had  seemed  to  show  in 
respecting  the  religious  points  of  view  of  my 
classes,  always. 

"But,  on  the  other  hand,  you  cannot,  of 
course,  realize  (till  you  have  come  to  teach  the 
subject)  how  all  our  best  literature  in  this 
century  —  and  a  good  deal  of  it  in  the  last  cen 
tury  —  dips  continually  into  this  underlying 
stream  of  philosophical  thought,  and  ethical 
-feeling.  'In  Memoriam/  for  example,  is  one  of 
the  poems  I  read  with  my  senior  classes.  You 
may  discuss  its  rhythms,  its  epithets,  its  meta- 


240  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

phors,  its  felicities  and  infelicities  of  Art,  — 
you  are  still  on  the  surface  of  it.  The  fact  is 
that  a  thinking  man  put  a  good  lot  of  his  views 
of  things  in  general  into  it  —  and  those  views 
and  his  feelings  about  them  are  precisely  the 
'literature'  there  is  in  the  thing.  And  the 
study  of  it,  as  literature,  should  transfer  these 
views  and  feelings  straight  and  clear  to  the 
brain  of  the  student.  ...  So  of  'Middlemarch,' 
or'Romola.'  Or  Hume's* Essays.'  Or 'Faust,' 
or  'Manfred,'  or  Kenan's  'Souvenirs  de  1'en- 
fance.' 

"  The  more  you  think  of  it,  the  more  you  will 
come  to  see  that  the  moment  you  drive  the 
study  of  literature  away  from  the  virile 
thought  of  modern  men  and  women,  you  drive 
it  into  the  puerilities  of  word-study,  and 
mousing  about  'end-stopt  lines'  and  all  that." 

The  allusion  to  Yale  in  this  letter  to  Holt 
evidently  led  his  mind  back  to  California,  and 
he  lets  out  vigorously  at  the  politics  and  nar 
rowness  of  the  place :  — 

4 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  March  22,  '85  (?). 

DEAR   H ,  —  Yours   of   the   15th  was 

received  yesterday.  I  am  sorry  to  hear  you 
have  to  look  out  for  your  health  at  all.  No 
doubt  a  few  weeks  of  change  will  make  you  all 
right  again.  My  own  prescription  for  nervous 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  241 

dyspepsia  would  be  a  couple  of  months  of 
roughing  it  in  the  hills,  say  in  California;  but 
perhaps  it  would  not  suit  everybody.  A  New 
Yorker  would  perhaps  be  unhappy  without  his 
accustomed  conveniences,  and  so  defeat  the 
end.  For  it  is  necessary  to  be  a  little  happy,  I 
suppose,  to  really  cure  dyspepsia.  I  shall  hope 
to  get  good  news  from  you  after  you  have  been 
free  from  business  awhile. 

Language  chiefly  conceals  thought,  and  as 
of  old  I  never  find  that  a  letter  has  given  much 
light,  on  any  complex  subject,  to  my  corre 
spondent.  I  think  we  would  probably  agree 
more  nearly  than  a  correspondence  (epistolary) 
would  ever  indicate,  as  to  Yale  College,  et  alia. 

Perhaps  I  gave  you  the  impression  (not 
that  it's  any  matter)  that  my  leaving  the 
University  of  California  was  caused  wholly  by 
the  religious  question.  In  fact  this  was  only  one 
vexation  out  of  many.  My  heart  was  very 
much  set  on  two  or  three  matters  of  university 
progress,  and  things  turned  so  as  to  defeat 
them.  For  instance,  I  was  interested  (and  am) 
in  the  education  of  women.  I  wanted  to  make 
co-education  a  complete  success,  and  to  that 
end  wanted  to  cut  off  a  class  of  silly  girls  who 
had  no  preparatory  attainments  and  no  par 
ticular  purpose,  and  who  kept  swarming  in  on 
us  as  "specials"  or  "partial  course"  students. 
Then  the  last  straw  was  .  .  .  which  made  the 


242  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

position  of  any  self-respecting  professor  in 
tolerable.  The  others  stuck,  liking  their  seats 
and  salaries  ($3000  a  year  we  had) ;  but  I  let 
that  go  in  with  a  certain  lack  of  physical  tone 
to  determine  me  to  resign. 

He  might  easily  have  been  thinking  of  Holt 
and  the  rest  of  that  loyal  group  of  Yale  class 
mates  when  he  wrote:  — 

"How  perpetually  true  it  is  that  we  never 
learn  anything  new  about  anybody  when  we 
have  summered  and  wintered  him  in  college!  I 
guess  that's  the  chief  good  of  a  college  course 
-  to  know  a  few  types  right  down  to  bedrock. 
(It's  a  good  sign  as  to  the  complex  value  of  a 
college  education,  that  we  are  always  finding 
some  new  thing  that  is  the  'chief  good  of  a 
college  course.') 

"Have  I  remarked  to  you  a  few  hundred 
times  that  I  have  discovered  that  no  one  has  a 
friend  except  college  people?  Business  men 
who  never  went  to  college  never  have  such  a 
thing  as  an  intimate  friend.  Don't  know  what 
the  word  means." 

Partly  as  a  result  of  writing  his  opinions  of 
French  literature,  -—  and  then  questioning 
them,  —  he  began  reading  French  furiously 
and  would  have  his  friends  do  the  like. 

"Really  you'll  have  to  get  up  your  French 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  243 

and  read  George  Sand's  'Autobiography.'  .  .  . 
The  only  refuge  for  you  from  the  whizzing  of 
the  brain  along  one  track,  is  in  reading  French. 
Really  I  don't  know  how  I  could  have  tided 
over  certain  days  and  nights  I  have  had,  ...  if 
I  had  n't  had  a  French  story  to  read.  You  see 
there  are  n't  any  more  good  English  stories, 
and  you  have  to  read  the  French  ones.  There 
never  were  many  of  the  kind  I  mean  —  where 
the  plot,  and  a  certain  snap  about  the  dialogue, 
lead  you  along  page  after  page.  The  French 
stories  keep  a  mature  mind  going,  just  as  Eng 
lish  ones  do  a  child's  mind.  George  Sand,  or 
Dumas  pere,  takes  my  mind  along  just  as 
Dickens  used  to  when  I  was  a  boy.  I  confess 
that  in  the  case  of  Dumas  there  is  not  so  much 
residuum  as  in  the  case  of  Dickens  —  it  all 
goes  in  at  one  ear  and  out  of  the  other  —  but 
who  cares?  The  thing  is  to  drag  the  mind 
away  from  its  pizens,  and  keep  it  away  long 
enough  to  recuperate  a  little.  ...  If  I  spell 

*  favour '  it 's  perhaps  because  I  have  been  read 
ing  French  lately.  Though  I  always  did  prefer 
those  u  spellings,  a  little  —  while  despising 
such  questions  too  much  for  thinking  much 
about  it.  I  have  a  vague  sense  that  words  have 
a  family  pride  in  their  true  origin,  that  may 
as  well  be  respected.  As  if  a  word  should  say  to 
a  person  who  spells  it  in  its  derivative  entirety : 

*  Oh,  who  is  this  that  knows  the  way  I  came? ' 


244  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

Somehow,  there  are  several  of  the  Websterisms, 
or  Americanisms,  that  jar  on  me  as  indicative 
of  not  knowing  the  way  they  came  —  or  much 
else." 

The  publicity  which  attends  most  writing, 
especially  that  of  the  magazine  writer  of 
poems  and  occasional  articles,  continued  to 
annoy  and  vex  him.  It  crops  up  in  various 
letters,  first  in  a  casual  manner :  — 

"More  and  more  I  wish  all  literary  work 
was  anonymous.  These  people  who  are  madly 
tearing  around  after  a  reputation,  and  these 
people  (worst  of  all)  who  assume  that  we  are  - 
that  is  the  really  appalling  thing.  ...  I  wish 
they  wouldn't  always  'say  something'  if  a 
body  send  some  printed  thing.  .  .  . 

"Don't  tell  any  such  thing  about  what  I 
write  anonymously  to  any  one  with  a  penchant 
or  opportunity  for  newspaper  'personals,'  ever. 
I  dread  them  exceedingly.  I  had  an  offer 
lately  to  be  personalized,  which  really  scared 
me.  The  safest  way  is  not  to  tell  anybody,  till 
things  are  a  year  or  two  old  and  no  longer  of 
interest.  .  .  . 

"...  Her  interest  in  things  outside  of  rela 
tion  to  her  seemed  rather  fictitious.  It  is  a 
horrible  penalty  to  pay  for  fame  and  flattery. 
I  more  and  more  believe  the  only  way  for 
ordinary  mortals  is  to  keep  out  of  sight,  and 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  245 

write  anonymously.  Why  not?  It  seems  to  me 
I  should  like  a  man  very  much,  who,  having 
gained  a  good  reputation,  went  on  doing  better 
and  better  work,  'smiling  unbeknownst.'  He 
would  like  to  succeed  first  and  then  do  it  to 
make  it  clear  to  himself  it  was  no  fear  of  failure 
or  timidity." 

And  then  he  utters  it  more  fully  to  a  friend  in 
California  and  in  more  than  one  letter  to 
Aldrich:- 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  Nov.  1,  —  MONDAY. 

The  trouble  about  signing  one's  name  to 
poems  is  that  stupid  people  (and  we  are  all 
pretty  stupid  sometimes)  persist  in  thinking 
every  word  literally  autobiographical.  I  have 
had  enough  annoyance  from  that  to  sicken  any 
one  of  ever  writing  verse  again,  or  anything  else 
but  arithmetics  and  geographies.  Even  then 
somebody  would  hate  you  for  your  view  of  the 
Indian  Ocean,  or  fear  the  worst  about  your 
character  because  of  your  treatment  of  the 
Least  Common  Multiple.  People  are  getting  to 
write  anonymously  now  and  then.  (You  did  n't 
write  "The  Bread  winners,"  did  you?  Perhaps 
the  Janitor  at  the  University  did  —  or  Bacon 
the  printer,  or  Henry  Ward  Beecher.) 

As  to  French  poetry,  I  know  there's  an 
other  side.  I  believe  as  I  used  to,  about  the 


246  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

mass  of  French  writers.  It's  only  here  and 
there  a  George  Sand  or  a  delicate  poet.  As  to 
German  —  Heine  was  a  Jew  of  the  Jews.  You 
might  as  well  instance  Job  as  a  German.  A 
friend  of  mine  calls  certain  graceful  verse 
"unsubstantial."  It 's  true  much  of  the  French 
is  so. 

Your  test  is  the  best  one:  which  sticks  in 
the  mind.  Or  as  some  one  puts  it,  as  a  test  of 
great  writers,  whose  work  has  most  entered 
into  the  world's  intellectual  life? 

Yours, 

E.  R.  S. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  April  10,  1885. 
BUT,  MY  DEAR  MB.  ALDRICH,  —  Don't  you 
see  the  difficulty  in  the  way  of  my  printing  such 
poems  as  that  "Tempted"  over  my  own  name, 
- 1  a  staid  citizen,  the  husband  of  one  wife,  as 
saith  the  Scripture,  the  model  for  ingenuous 
youth,  the  sometime  professor  of  coeducated 
young  men  and  maidens,  and  all  that.  I  tell 
you  there  is  no  comfort  for  a  man  the  minute 
he  begins  to  write  anything  that  is  an  intimite 
or  that  sounds  (whether  it  is  or  not)  like  the 
voice  of  any  personal  feeling  or  experience 
beyond  the  humdrum  —  no  comfort  but  be 
hind  a  mask.  Print  me  over  a  nom  de  goose 
quill  (I  have  one  that  pleases  me  a  shade  better 
than  the  one  I  suggested  before)  —  and  I  will 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  247 

send  you  some  remarkable  poems.  I  cannot  be 
sure  what  they  will  be  most  remarkable  for  — 
they  may  make  your  hair  stand  on  end  and  set 
your  teeth  on  edge  by  their  "sincerity,"  but  at 
any  rate  I  would  like  to  try  the  experiment. 

(I  have  another  reason  about  which  I 
should  have  to  write  seriously,  if  at  all,  so  I 
will  not  go  into  it.) 

I  like  my  own  name  very  well,  you  under 
stand,  and  have  no  reason  for  anything  but 
modest  pride  in  it,  and  yet  —  for  one  reason  and 
another  —  I  don't  care  to  see  it  in  print;  and 
especially  under  any  sort  of  genuine  poetry. 
For  once,  then,  let  me  coax  you  to  put  your 
objection  to  the  pen-name  in  your  pocket  — 
and  go  write  under  that  brief  poem  "Haden 
Dana,"  and  we  will  see  if  we  will  not  fool 
the  world  into  believing  he  is  a  poet  before 
the  magazine  is  many  years  older. 

Please  treat  this  name  as  confidential,  whether 
you  consent  to  be  god-father  to  it  or  not. 
Very  sincerely  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  April  18,  1885. 
DEAR  'MR.  ALDRICH,  —  I  know  that  such 
poems  are  "dramatic"  and  that  no  one  has  a 
right  to  pin  a  feeling  or  thought  down  to  a  par 
ticular  origin  in  fact  —  yet  some  one  will  al 
ways  do  it,  and  that  some  one  the  very  one  you 


248  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

would  prefer  not.  It  is  n't  the  great  public  one 
fears,  it  is  the  some  ones. 

Browning  with  his  "fifty  men  and  women" 
has  a  right  to  step  out  of  any  personal  account 
ability  for  their  utterances,  yet  don't  we  know 
after  all,  that  most  that  is  good  for  anything  is 
autobiographic  in  one  sense  or  another?  If  you 
ever  do  write  the  Reflections  of  the  To-be- 
hanged,  I,  for  one,  shall  never  be  able  to  avoid 
the  dim  suspicion  that  you  have  murdered 
some  one  in  your  dreams,  or  been  mad  enough 
to  do  it. 

You  need  not  fear  my  being  too  "candid" 
for  your  taste,  unless  my  own  taste  should 
suffer  some  change,  or  give  way  before  some 
strain  at  present  unforeseen.  I  am  pretty 
deeply  impressed,  myself,  with  the  truth  that 
there  are  plenty  of  things  "worthy  of  sacred 
silence."  The  indecent  exposures  of  the  small 
poets  and  poetesses  are  frightful.  The  poetesses 
are  the  worst,  I  believe.  I  hardly  know  a  maga 
zine  at  home  or  abroad,  except  the  "Atlantic," 
that  has  not  printed  things  that  offend  a  nice 
instinct  of  silence. 

As  to  names,  "Haden  "  had  not  struck  me  as 
an  "album  word."  It  was  familiar  to  me  from 
the  noted  etcher,  and  suggests  rather  Haddam 
and  haddock,  etc.  But  I  trust  your  sense  and 
abandon  it  gladly.  Wilson  Dana  somehow  has 
long  spindling  legs  in  my  imagination,  and  an 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  249 

unkempt  beard,  and  has  something  to  do  with 
patent  medicine,  or  pills;  I  can't  tell  where  he 
gets  the  association.  If  "Andrew  Hedbrook" 
seems  to  you  a  good  sort  of  fellow,  will  you 
take  him? 

Sincerely  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

%  Andrew  did  seem  to  Aldrich  a  good  fellow 
and  under  this  cloak  Sill  wrote  with  increasing 
ease  and  freedom.  He  was  soon  apologizing  for 
his  too  frequent  appearance  in  the  "Atlantic," 
where,  however,  neither  editor  nor  readers  ever 
found  him  unwelcome. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  May  11,  1885. 
EDITOR  ATLANTIC,  - 

DEAR  SIR,  —  My  friend  Andrew  omitted 
to  enclose  stamps  with  a  bit  of  dramatic  dia 
logue  sent  to-day.  He  takes  the  opportunity  to 
slip  in  another  small  poem  —  not  expecting 
you  to  keep  all  he  sends,  but  wishing  you  to 
have  the  best  of  what  he  writes,  and  believing 
you  are  the  best  judge  of  that. 
Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

Surely  it  can  have  happened  only  rarely  in 
the  history  of  our  fledgling  literature  that  a 
poet-contributor  has  been  so  fortunate  as  to 


250  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

have  a  poet-editor  with  whom,  in  the  craftsman 
spirit,  free  from  thought  of  self-interest,  he 
could  discuss  details  of  rhythm  and  assonance, 
and  sense  and  sound:  — 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  May  27,  1885. 

DEAR  MR.  A ,  —  Or  is  one  of  these 

better?  (In  the  "  Dead  Letter  "  near  the  end,  it 
should  read:  "Its  white  ghost  in  the  ash"  in 
stead  of  "the  w.  g.,"  etc.,  as  perhaps  I  wrote 
it.) 

I  am  sorry  to  make  you  read  so  much 
manuscript.  I  hope  you  are  a  very  patient 
man. 

A  patient  poet  once  received 
So  many  manuscripts,  he  grieved, 
And  cried,  O  choke  for  me,  I  beg, 
This  goose  that  lays  the  daily  egg! 

A.  HEDBROOK. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  June  9,  1885. 

DEAR  MR.  A ,  —  It  occurs  to  me  after 

mailing  the  proofs  of  the  "Hermione"  lyrics 
and  Shakspere :  — 

1.  The   prose  has    too    much    title.    Omit 
"Interlude"  and  leave  it  "An  Imag.  Conver.," 
etc. 

2.  I  altered  the  couplet  near  the  beginning 
not  wantonly  to  make  more  printers'  work,  but 
because  I  remembered  that  it  might  betray  the 
author,  as  it  stood,  to  one  person.  If  I  am  to  be 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  251 

"anon,"  I  prefer  not  even  to  have  my  left 
hand  know  what  my  right  hand  doeth. 

3.  In  the  first  lyric  I  changed  "blest"  to 
"dear"  to  avoid  rhyming  with  the  last  word 
of  the  stanza  before. 

4.  Would  it  not  be  well  for  you  to  alter 
spelling  of  "stepped"  (3d  stanza,  1st  lyric)  to 
"stept,"  so  as  to  rhyme  to  the  eye  as  well  as  to 
the  ear?  Or  not. 

In  the  last  and  least  lyric  I  went  back  to 
your  suggestion  for  the  last  line  of  first  stanza. 
I  am  always  glad  to  have  suggestions  from  you. 

I  tried  to  get  off  in  a  corner  to  write  this 
note,  but  the  ubiquitous  Andrew  found  me  out 
and  insists  on  my  slipping  in  another  thing 
from  him. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  May  31,  1885. 

DEAR  MR.  A ,  —  By  all  means  print 

the  Shakspere  Interlude  unsigned,  as  you  sug 
gest.  It  would  suit  me  very  well  to  have 
everything  printed  unsigned,  except  those 
things  on  which  I  nom-de-plume  myself  —  or 
any  of  those,  that  you  are  willing  to  print  that 
way. 

If  you  want  a  fine  poem  from  Andrew  along 
in  the  summer  or  fall,  —  a  really  effulgent 
one,  or  perhaps  some  wonderful  pyrotechnic 
prose  tale,  —  you  have  only  to  furnish  him 
with  a  bit  of  information  —  namely,  this: 


252  EDWARD  ROWLAND    SILL 

where  can  be  found  in  the  United  States  short 
of  California,  a  spot  in  which  to  spend  three 
weeks  (say,  of  August)  where  there  is  either,  — 

1.  Water  to  boat  on, 

2.  A  mountain  to  climb, 

3.  A  forest  to  ride  in, 

4.  Pound  trout  to  catch. 
And  where  there  are  not  — 

1.  Mosquitoes, 

2.  Empty  preserved   meat  cans,   and   dis 
carded  paper  collars  strewing  the  scene. 

In  other  words,  a  scrap  of  nature  unpolluted 
by  Punch's 'Arry  with  his  "alarums  and  excur 
sions."  In  California  I  lived  on  the  privilege 
of  spending  every  summer  in  perfectly  wild 
places,  and  I  feel  the  ache  for  it  coming  on  me 
tremendously.  If  any  man  in  Boston  knows  of 
such  a  place  and  will  impart  the  knowledge  to 
you  and  you  will  pass  it  on  to  Andrew,  the 
gorgeous  literary  work  shall  be  forthcoming. 

I  should  add  that  he  is  forced  to  count  the 
cost,  even  to  quarters,  else  he  would  go  to  Cal 
ifornia  for  what  he  wants. 
Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

Sill's  acquaintance  with  Aldrich  had  advanced 
to  the  footing  where  he  was  now  writing  him 
on  the  most  serious  subjects  in  the  world  — 
Religion  and  Getting  a  Living. 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  253 

His  letter  on  the  first  of  these  subjects 
should  be  placed  beside  one  written  a  little  later 
to  Holt,  for  the  two  together  not  only  give  a 
fairly  good  account  of  the  position  he  had 
reached  but,  by  recalling  that  intensely  per 
sonal  and  pathetic  letter  to  Holt  almost  exactly 
twenty  years  before  when  he  was  agonizing  to 
persuade  himself  that  he  did  believe  in  the 
orthodox  creed  of  his  forefathers,  show  how 
long  a  journey  he  had  taken.  What  a  distance 
he  had  come  since  he  wrote,  "Either  Christ  was 
God  or  He  was  not.  And  if  He  was,  we  must 
take  what  He  said  as  actual  truth,  not  to  be 
twisted  or  turned  aside.  .  .  .  Through  his  name, 
his  sacrifice,  and  his  intercession  and  thus  alone, 
can  we  inherit  eternal  life.  I  seem  to  see  Him 
standing  there  .  .  .  with  a  solemn  earnest  face 
looking  at  you  and  me  ...  and  saying  .  .  . 
'he  that  believeth  shall  be  saved  —  he  that  be- 
lieveth  not  shall  be  damned.' " 

From  doubtful  hope  he  had  gone  to  hopeful 
doubt  and  sturdy  scepticism  and  content  —  at 
moments  even  aggressive  agnosticism,  thus 
summing  up  in  his  own  experience  the  religious 
history  of  his  generation. 

June  9,  1885. 

DEAE  MR.  A ,  —  Do  you  want  to  do 

me  a  great  favor?  I  don't  know  in  the  least 
what  your  proclivities  (or  declivities)  are  in 
the  way  of  religious  matters,  but  I  am  going 


254  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

to  assume  that  yours  are  not  far  away  from  mine 
—  enough  to  ask  you,  if  you  are  naturally  in 
the  way  of  seeing  manuscripts,  submitted  to 
the  firm  for  publication,  to  look  into  an  essay 
I  sent  them  (with  some  others)  entitled  "The 
XlXth  Century  "  —  along  toward  the  end  of 
it  —  and  purloin  certain  pages  treating  of  the 
Christian  Church  as  a  nuisance  and  fraud  —  if 
it  is  likely,  otherwise,  to  be  read  by  some  mem 
bers  of  the  firm  (I  don't  in  the  least  know  who 
or  what  they  are)  —  some  very  conservative, 
elderly,  religious,  sensitive,  choleric,  old-fash 
ioned  gentleman  with  gold-spectacles  and  high 
collar,  and  a  pew  in  church  and  gold-headed 
cane  —  who  hates  George  Sand  and  Herbert 
Spencer  (by  reputation)  and  loves  Joseph  Cook. 
Is  there  such  a  fearful  catastrophe  imminent 
as  that  such  a  man  should  read  my  essay  and 
be  made  really  ill  by  it? 

//  so  (understand  I  know  nothing  at  all 
about  it),  will  you  do  me  the  friendly  act  to 
take  out  three  or  four  pages  that  may  seem 
very  flagrant?  There  are  only  a  few  pages  that 
speak  of  the  church.  (It  is  only  the  essay  on 
Morals  that  I  really  care  to  get  printed,  and 
I  believe  that  would  not  really  hurt  anybody's 
feelings.) 

It  is  asking  a  great  deal  to  ask  you  to  look 
at  any  manuscripts  outside  of  the  ones  your 
own  work  bring  upon  you,  I  know.  But  I  scent 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  255 

orthodoxy  in  a  note  received  yesterday  from 
the  firm,  and  it  would  simply  offend  an  ortho 
dox  man  —  and  uselessly,  for  he  never  would 
print  it  —  to  read  the  last  part  of  that  "  19th 
Century"  essay. 

Sincerely  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  Nov.  18,  '85. 

MY  DEAR  HENRY  [HOLT],  —  I  am  glad  of 
what  you  say  about  the  essays,  etc.  It  is  ex 
tremely  agreeable  to  know  that  one's  old 
friends  still  keep  one  in  mind  and  have  a 
friendly  interest  in  what  he  is  doing.  I  would  be 
glad  to  hear  from  you  oftener  and  to  know  more 
in  detail  about  your  doings  —  inner  and  outer. 

As  to  the  college  presidency :  —  I  do  not 
feel  sufficiently  in  mid-stream  of  educational 
affairs  at  the  East  and  do  not  know  the  younger 
men  likely  to  be  candidates  well  enough  to  make 
any  comparative  judgment  of  so  much  value  as 
that  of  others  more  in  the  midst  of  things;  but 
I  should  be  very  glad  to  say  in  any  way  —  pub 
lic  or  private  —  that  of  all  the  men  I  know  Mr. 
Oilman  seems  to  me  the  best  for  the  place.  No 
one  can  be  more  thoroughly  convinced  than  I 
am  that  the  clerical  element  is  a  minor  one  to 
Yale  College.  Whoever  is  chosen  for  the  head, 
I  hope  it  will  be  no  clergyman  —  no  * '  Doctor ' '  of 
an  exploded  * '  Divinity. "  In  fact  so  thoroughly 


256  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

do  I  feel  this  that  Mr.  Oilman  seems  to  me  a 
little  too  much  addicted  to  the  old  mythology 
and  observances  to  be  an  ideal  man  for  the 
head  of  the  future  college.  I  should  find  him  a 
grain  better  suited  to  the  position  if  we  found 
him  a  little  more  frank  and  courageous  about 
acknowledging  that  "it  moves"  and  that  it  is 
time  for  some  of  the  old  things  to  pass  away. 
But  this  view  is  perhaps  not  shared  by  the 
rest  of  you.  You  know  my  feeling  that  the 
Christian  mythology  and  the  Church  grip  on 
society  are  very  hurtful  things.  They  are  more 
in  the  way  of  the  progress  of  true  ideas  about 
man  and  life  than  all  other  influences  put  to 
gether.  Yes,  Mr.  Oilman,  by  all  means.  I  don't 
know  any  man  that  compares  with  him  for  the 
position.  By  the  way,  who  are  the  "half-dozen 
best  men,  'anti-clericals'"?  I  don't  quite  like 
the  idea  of  having  this  movement  toward  a 
national  government  of  Yale  "University  "  and 
Yale  College  from  New  York,  as  if  it  were  from 
a  coterie  or  clique.  That  notion  will  get  into 
people's  heads  and  damage  the  movement,  if 
you  don't  look  out.  This  is  a  rather  large  coun 
try  you  know.  Harvard  is  controlled  by  a  pro 
vincial  clique.  It  is  a  Boston  concern.  But  Yale 
belongs  to  the  country  in  general.  I  don't  think 
it  was  a  fortunate  thing  that  an  exclusively 
New  York  Yale  Club  was  formed  just  at  this 
time.  But  I  may  be  wrong.  Stanford's  twenty 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  257 

million  California  University  may  get  Mr.  Gil- 
man!  What  then? 

Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

Like  every  other  author  Sill  yielded  to  the 
enchantment  which  distance  lends  to  the  edi 
torial  chair.  Well  for  him  and  his  poetry  that 
he  never  attained  its  doubtful  dignity! 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  July  30,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  A ,  —  It  was  sufficiently 

overwhelming  to  find  three  things  of  mine 
in  one  number  of  the  " Atlantic":  and  now 
your  friendly  praise  really  scares  me.  It  is  a 
rather  delightful  way  of  being  scared,  I  admit, 
to  get  such  words  from  a  man  who  holds  the 
place  in  my  estimation  that  you  do;  but  actu 
ally  I  am  afraid  I  never  can  do  well  enough  to 
deserve  them.  And  I  don't  know  whether  I 
shall  dare  send  you  any  more  things,  without 
writing  them  over  forty  or  fifty  times  and  soak 
ing  them  down  for  a  year. 

Hedbrook  here  has  a  bunch  of  things,  but 
has  no  courage  to  send  them,  at  present.  And 
there  is  a  prose  lingo  about  Humming  Birds 
here  in  my  desk.  When  I  get  over  blushing 
I  will  mail  some  of  them,  or  something  else. 
But  I  beg  of  you  to  treat  whatever  I  send  with 
unrelenting  justice  of  judgment,  and  send  them 


258  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

back  (if  you  will  continue  to  be  so  kind  as  to 
take  that  trouble)  without  thinking  it  neces 
sary  to  give  any  reason  but  their  "unavailabil 
ity,"  and  that,  too,  in  printed  form  whenever 
the  spirit  does  not  move  you  —  or  time  does 
not  allow  you  —  to  write. 

I  wonder  if  you  would  not  like  to  have  me 
help  in  the  preliminary  sifting  of  your  piles 
of  manuscripts.  I  seem  to  lack  suitable  em 
ployment  at  present,  and  one  cannot  be  writing 
either  polemics  or  poetry  all  the  time.  I  can 
read  manuscript  very  fast,  and  I  could  say  very 
unkind  things  to  the  contributors  of  the  worst 
material.  (I  should  wish  to  leave  it  to  your 
peaceful  pen  to  say  the  kind  things.)  I  Ve  a  no 
tion  that  with  proper  training  from  you  I  could 
bear  a  hand  somewhere  about  that  work  of 
yours;  in  its  lower  regions,  at  least,  as  a  getter- 
through  of  preliminary  drudgery. 

I    thank   you    most   heartily  for  your  en 
couraging  and  friendly  words  to  me. 
Sincerely  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

During  the  summer  of  1885  wide  interest 
was  excited  in  the  project  of  Senator  Leland 
Stanford,  a  California  millionaire,  to  found  a 
university  as  a  memorial  to  his  son,  then  lately 
dead.  Sill  was  concerned  that  the  university 
should  deserve  the  name  of  a  university.  He 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  259 

writes  to    President   Gilman,  of  Johns  Hop 
kins  :  — 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  June  15,  '85. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  Mr.  Stanford  has  been 
so  long  shut  up  to  the  association  with  men 
whose  talk  is  of  horses  that  I  think  we  should 
be  prepared  for  some  pretty  low  views  —  I 
mean  shallow,  short-sighted,  sordid  views  of 
life  and  things;  but  I  should  think  a  man  of 
your  persuasive  speech  and  tact  in  meeting  the 
particular  mind  in  hand  on  a  given  occasion, 
might  easily  make  him  see  (for  I  think  he  has 
a  sound  enough  judgment,  so  far  as  his  percep 
tions  and  opportunities  give  him  data)  that  the 
only  great  things,  so  far  in  the  world  —  with 
great  and  enduring  reputations  —  and  great 
power  in  the  world  —  and  therefore  great 
glory  for  the  doers  or  founders  of  them  —  have 
been  those  that  have  based  themselves  on  deep 
and  permanent  needs  of  man.  No  fiddlesticks 
of  an  industrial  college,  or  mechanics  training 
school,  or  Dr.  Newman  affair  —  meeting  only 
a  newspaper  demand,  or  demagogue  demand. 

I  wish  he  could  realize  the  tremendous  re 
nown  and  power  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  - 
or  of  the  big  German  universities,  and  figure 
himself  as  begetting  such  another.  Can't  we 
raise  Bishop  Berkeley's  spirit  (where  is  the 
witch  of  Endor?)  to  inflame  him? 

What  a  thing  it  might  be,  out  there  in  Call- 


260  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

fornia  if  he  only  would!  To  start,  you  see,  free 
of  the  old  load  of  accumulated  rubbish,  and 
with  the  advantage  of  all  that  has  been  learned 
by  means  of  or  in  spite  of  this  rubbish  -  -  It  is 
great. 

But  you  don't  need  that  I  should  say  any 
thing  to  you  on  this  topic. 

I  only  wish  you  good  speed  if  you  have  any 
opportunities  to  bring  it  about. 

As  ever  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

PEES.  GILMAN,  BALTIMORE. 

This  letter  to  Holt  recalls  Sill's  essay, 
"Should  a  College  Educate,"  which  appeared 
in  the  "Atlantic"  the  same  month,  and  doubt 
less  provoked  the  correspondence:  - 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  Aug.  11,  '85. 

DEAR  H ,  —  I'll  tell  you  just  how  far  it 

goes  (the argument  for  "studying  what  one  dis 
likes  ").  It  goes  so  far  as  great  regions  of  study 
are  concerned;  like  mathematics,  philosophy, 
literature.  Any  man  who  has  taught  ten  years 
in  any  large  college  knows  that  mere  heredity 
(and  early  surroundings)  produces  acres  of 
students  who  will  not  only  dislike  but  hate  and 
despise  certain  regions  of  effort  and  attainment; 
effeminate  weaklings  who  have  a  wonderful 
scorn  of  all  athletics;  big  brawny  fellows  who 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  261 

contemn  clean  linen  and  delicate  manners; 
musical  temperaments  that  loathe  any  kind  of 
hard  work  whatever;  and  hard  workers  who 
despise  all  music  as  effeminate;  sons  of  West 
Pointers  who  think  all  scholarship  is  worthless ; 
and  sons  of  scholars  who  hate  a  military  man; 
sons  of  civil  engineers  who  can  hardly  be  brought 
to  read  and  write  easy  words;  and  sons  of  liter 
ary  men  who  think  mathematics  simply  devil 
ish  torture.  You've  no  idea  of  the  extent  of 
this  till  you  teach  a  lot  of  youngsters. 

The  awfullest  fact  in  creation  is  this  thing 
of  heredity.  I  've  no  doubt  you  know  plenty  of 
splendid  men  who  have  come  through  scienti 
fic  training.  The  question  is  how  much  less  — 
or  more  —  splendid  would  they  be  for  knowing 
the  Zeitgeist  of  the  ancient  time  as  well  as  that  of 
the  present  time?  Would  they  be  any  the  less 
efficient  with  a  wider  grasp  on  literature  and 
the  thought  of  the  world  outside  their  special 
ties?  The  way  to  judge  how  much  of  the  ad 
mirable  product  came  from  the  scientific  and 
illiberal  training,  is  to  see  how  many  perfect 
asses  that  training  produces.  Judge  by  the 
average  product.  And  study  it  —  as  I  have 
done  —  in  the  universities  where  they  have 
both  making  side  by  side  —  the  same  raw  ma 
terial,  the  same  length  of  time,  but  the  two  con 
trasted  curricula. 

Ask  yourself  this  question  fairly :  How  many 


262  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

people  do  I  know  who  have  learned  German 
and  French  without  being  in  any  sense  "  edu 
cated"  persons;  how  many,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  have  learned  Latin  or  Greek  without  be 
ing  in  some  sense  "educated"  persons?  Why, 
nurse-girls  and  dancing-masters  and  hack- 
drivers  know  French  and  German  better  than 
the  Ollendorff  college  classes  do.  Does  it  edu 
cate  them  much? 

Then  ask  the  same  question  as  to  the  natural 
sciences,  and  compare  with  the  humane  stu 
dies,  —  literoB  humaniores.  Which  would  do 
most  for  a  young  fellow,  an  hour  with  Spencer's 
"Data  of  Ethics  "  or  an  hour  with  a  clam?  Well, 
the  one  is  philosophy,  the  other  science.  And 
a  clam  in  a  book  is  n't  even  half  so  efficacious 
as  a  clam  in  the  mud.  But  our  shield  has  two 
sides,  no  doubt. 

But  I  began  this  only  to  thank  you  for  your 
friendly  invitation.  I  am  afraid  we  shall  not  be 
able  to  accept  it,  for  health  is  the  one  thing  we 
are  after,  and  we  must  flee  to  the  mountains 
after  a  little  sniff  of  the  ocean  breeze,  somewhere 
down  East  where  it  is  cool  and  bracing.  Thank 
you,  too,  for  the  information.  Very  likely  we 
will  try  one  of  the  places  you  recommend. 

Pardon  my  saying  so  many  words  on  the 
educational  question.  I  presume  you  and  I 
would  train  a  boy  very  much  alike  after  all.  I  '11 
confide  to  you  a  comical  fact  (considering  which 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  263 

side  I  am  arguing  on).  I've  spent  more  effort, 
ten  to  one,  on  getting  people  interested  in  the 
sciences  I'm  interested  in,  than  in  the  other 
studies  (always  excepting  modern  literature). 
I  never  met  a  boy  or  girl  without  setting  them 
at  my  binocular  microscope  and  getting  them 
to  hatch  out  tadpoles,  and  dissect  chickens' 
brains,  and  all  that.  And  I  have  always  worked 
intensely  to  get  young  and  old  to  read  Spencer, 
Darwin,  etc.  My  own  private  bent  is  toward 
natural  history. 

The  late  summer  saw  the  Sills  at  Gloucester, 
where  their  visit  was  long  remembered  by  a  few, 
at  least.  The  cottage  where  they  "camped 
out"  was  beside  the  sea,  and  faced  the  beauti 
ful  lava  gorge  where  the  tide  rose  almost  to  the 
piazza.  They  were  both  enthusiastic  walkers 
and  found  the  Gloucester  Downs  a  constant 
delight:  — 

"We  are  having  a  run  on  to  the  seaside  for 
*  health.'  ...  I  wish  you  could  see  the  Atlantic 
as  it  comes  in  on  the  rocks  here  on  Cape  Ann. 
I  think  the  Pacific  is  never  quite  so  fine,  at 
least  on  any  shore  I  have  seen  out  there.  .  .  . 
I  wish  you  could  see  (and  share)  the  queerness 
and  prettiness  of  the  place.  We  watch  the 
fishing  boats  —  sails  of  all  sizes  and  shapes  - 
flitting  out  to  sea  and  in  again.  It  is  a  much 
livelier  harbor  than  San  Francisco  Bay,  and 


264  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

has  so  much  more  life  color,  though  not  so  fine 
sky  and  earth  colors." 

On  his  return  to  the  West,  Sill  saw  Mr. 
Aldrich  in  Boston.  Unfortunately  he  was 
very  unwell,  in  consequence  of  an  accident  in 
Gloucester,  so  that  the  meeting  to  which  he  had 
looked  forward  eagerly  was  marred.  Appar 
ently  the  chance  for  a  longer  talk  never  came. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Oct.  13,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  A.,  —  Can  you  not  tell  Mr. 
Stedman  (if  his  book  is  not  yet  beyond  proof  - 
correcting)  that  one,  at  least,  of  the  "twilight" 
poets,  namely,  "  Sill,"  would  much  prefer  to  be 
left  out  of  his  enumeration?  He  had  me  in  his 
"  Century  "  article.  I  am  not  a  publishing  author 
(the  booklet  of  verses  of  which  I  think  I  sent 
you  a  copy  —  "The  Venus  of  Milo,"  etc.,  was 
never  published,  and  never  will  be),  and  so 
might  escape  being  stuck  in  his  catalogue,  like 
a  fly  on  a  pin.  Don't  you  think? 

I  enclose  a  few  things.  I  am  embarrassed 
sometimes  to  know  whether  I  have  sent  you 
something  before  or  not.  If  I  ever  send  a  poem 
again  that  you  have  sent  back  to  me,  I  beg  you 
to  forgive  me  and  lay  it  to  a  mere  mischance. 
I  certainly  mean  not  to.  But  I  hate  to  burn 
the  confounded  little  things  up,  sometimes, 
and  they  are  liable  to  get  misplaced. 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  265 

It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  me  to  see  you  a 
few  minutes.  I  had  some  things  I  wanted  very 
much  to  talk  to  you  about,  and  get  your  ad 
vice  on  (not  manuscript),  but  I  was  too  unwell 
to  do  it  then. 

Yours,  E.  R.  SILL. 

The  "sanctum  mottoes"  mentioned  below 
have  disappeared,  but  "the  following"  -a 
scrap  of  verse — seems  worth  preserving:— 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Oct.  15,  1885. 
DEAR  MR.  A — ,  Andrew  thinks  it  is  neces 
sary  for  me  to  add  (but  of  course  it  is  n't)  that 
the  sanctum  mottoes  are  not  for  the  magazine 
but  for  the  editor,  in  reminiscence  of  a  too-too 
brief  visit.  And  as  I  am  writing  he  must  needs 
put  in  the  following. 

Yours,  E.  R.  SILL. 

To  a  Face  Contradictory 

Two  soft  blue,  warring  eyes :  one  looks  at  me 
With  lid  a  little  drooping,  wistfully. 

The  other,  wider  open,  does  not  fear, 

And  will  not  hope,  but  watches  to  see  clear. 

One  hints  of  love;  the  other  does  not  hate: 

One  tells  me  "come"!  the  other  warns  me,  "Wait!" 

The  voice,  at  least,  is  single.   That  I  trust, 
Because,  —  because  I  do,  because  I  must. 


56  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

Shut,  riddling  eyes!  or  in  the  dark  I'll  woo, 
And  my  one  voice  shall  speak  and  tell  me  true. 

ANDREW  HEDBROOK. 


CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Nov.  28,  1885. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  ALDRICH,  —  The  Lord  send 
you  patience  and  a  forgiving  spirit  if  I  trouble 
you  too  much  about  my  things;  but  I  want 
anything  you  use  to  be  as  good  as  possible,  — 
and  so :  — 

In  the  last  stanza  but  one  of  the  Sister  of 
Mercy,  —  "For  touch  of  human  company." 
Should  it  be  "  sympathy"  instead  of  "  com 
pany"? 

And  should  this  stanza  be  inserted  next? 
(referring  to  the  old  people) 

"I  know  the  thoughts  they  never  speak, 
When  children  bring  the  birthday  flowers. 
The  (scanty)  silent  tears  that  burn  the  cheek, 
While  night-bells  strike  the  dragging  hours." 

And  should  "his"  be  changed  to  "thy"  in 
the  first  stanza?      (I  thought,  in  writing  it 
"his,"  she  might  be  supposed  to  turn  from 
thoughts  of  him  to  addressing  him.) 
Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

Always  feel  free  to  substitute  for  any  ac 
cepted  thing  any  later  thing  if  you  like  it  better, 
and  reject  the  other. 


THE   CRAFTSMAN  267 

His  casual  letters  at  the  period  are  full 
of  flashes  of  comment  about  books  and  writ 
ers:  — 

"George  Eliot  says,  '"Henry  Esmond"  is 
a  disagreeable  story  at  the  end  —  because  he 
was  in  love  with  the  daughter  all  through  the 
book  and  then  married  the  mother  at  the  last' 
—  yet  I  think  it  seems  all  right,  as  one  reads 
it.  Who  would  have  had  him  marry  the  other, 
knowing  her? 

"The  orthodox  people  will  not  like  things 
George  Eliot  says  in  her  letters,  and  they  will 
try  to  frown  her  down.  But  they  will  not  suc 
ceed.  She  was  great,  and  good  too.  Let  them 
cast  stones  who  are  better.  She  was  clear 
headed  and  rational,  that's  all;  and  had  that 
faith  in  the  Divine  Wisdom  that  makes  one  feel 
sure  the  true  is  —  in  the  long  run  —  the  safe 
and  good.  .  .  . 

"...  I'm  making  acquaintance  with  an 
other  Frenchman  I  like:  Balzac.  He  sticks 
some  sharp  and  deep  probes  into  the  human 
heart.  Like  Thackeray,  he  makes  one  wonder 
'if  he  means  me.' 

"I  go  with  you  entirely  about  St.  Matthew's 
poetry,  and  the  Greek  of  it.  'How  he  does  it' 
is  by  being  that  way,  I  suppose.  But  perhaps 
he  is  an  example  of  the  educational  effect  of 
keeping  one's  mind  constantly  in  contact  with 
the  choicest  of  everything.  Think  what  a 


268  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

hodge-podge  of  influences  most  of  us  tumble 
around  in,  all  our  lives. 

"...  This  getting  up  in  the  morning  wrong 
foot  foremost  is  one  of  the  chief  ills  of  life.  More 
fun  overnight  is  what  would  keep  us  from  it. 
But  the  prescription  is  like  port  wine  and  pea 
cocks'  tongues  to  the  beggar.  Going  to  bed 
early  is  sometimes  a  safeguard.  I  wish  you'd 
write  a  magazine  essay  about  the  woes  and 
wants  of  children,  such  as  you  speak  of  in  that 
connection.  It  would  do  good.  Parents  don't 
mean  to  be  mean;  they  need  light.  .  .  . 

"I  have  come  to  feel  a  good  deal  your  dis 
relish  of  poetry.  A  friend  of  mine  writes  to 
me  that  he  lately  said,  *I  always  despised  it;  I 
believe  I  am  coming  to  hate  it.'  He  was  think 
ing  of  the  value  of  hard  facts.  But  every  now 
and  then,  at  an  odd  moment,  I  feel  that  all  the 
old  charm  of  it:  'Das  ew'ge,  alte  Lied'  -  -  (re 
member  that  poem  of  Anastasius  Griin  in  '  Gol 
den  Treasury  of  German  Song'?). 

"...  Almost  thou  persuadest  me  to  be  a 
pessimist.  .  .  .  And  we  shall  not  be  very  bad 
pessimists  (not  pessimi  pessimistorum)  while 
we  admit  that  after  all  it  is  worth  living,  for 
us,  and  worth  trying  for,  for  the  future  comers. 

"This  world  is  not  out  of  the  woods  yet  by 
any  means.  —  Meantime  I  hope  you  are  keep 
ing  your  soul  as  tranquil  as  circumstances  will 
permit:  taking  the  bird's-eye  view,  as  medi- 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  269 

cine,  before  each  meal  —  and  hearing,  when 
ever  you  wake  up  in  the  night,  that  'sentinel' 
who  goes  his  rounds '  whispering  to  the  worlds  of 
space'  'peace.' --One  must  not  expect  to  do 
very  much  more  than  the  average.  ...  It  's 
a  kind  of  greediness  that  circumstances  always 
conspire  to  cure  us  of." 

Sill's  own  soul  was  not  tranquil,  particularly 
when  he  thought  of  college  and  of  Yale  espe 
cially.  He  writes  with  becoming  candor  to 
Holt,  who,  however  he  may  have  felt  then,  it  is 
plain  from  a  reading  of  the  passages  on  Sill's 
college  life,  came  to  have  very  much  the  same 
opinion  as  Sill  about  their  alma  mater:  - 

CTJYAHOGA  FALLS,  Dec.,  '85. 

DEAR  H ,  —  I  might  add  as  postscript 

that  I  consider  it  perfectly  impossible  to  get 
Oilman  made  president  of  Yale.  They  would 
not  do  it  even  if  there  were  no  theological 
animus  involved.  And  with  that  it  is  as  if  you 
should  propose  Bismarck  or  Herbert  Spencer. 
Dwight  will  be  president,  and  a  pretty  presi 
dent  he  will  be!  Oilman  may  be  an  ordained 
"minister,"  but  they  know  well  enough  that  he 
would  not  consider  the  religious  test  in  getting 
his  faculty,  and  that  is  the  unum  necessarium 
in  New  Haven.  The  only  possible  hope  would 
be  to  scare  them  into  the  idea  that  a  big  rival 


270  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

university  was  being  projected,  on  advanced 
ideas.  And  why  should  n't  it  be  for  a  fact? 
Probably  you  do  not  share  my  contempt  for 
Yale  College  as  an  apparatus  of  liberal  educa 
tion.  I  have  but  a  very  feeble  interest  in  it, 
or  hope  of  its  ever  being  anything  but  a  sort 
of  old'  woman's  college,  —  a  nunnery  of  the 
church. 

Christmas  found  Sill  in  a  rather  sombre 
frame  of  mind  from  which  he  tried  with  but 
imperfect  success  to  rouse  himself  by  jocular 
communication  to  his  California  friends :  — 

"Don't  you  rather  reluct  at  writing  these 
last  dates  of  the  year?  The  illusion  is  strong 
upon  us  that  it  really  is  a  dying  away,  bit  by 
bit,  of  one  more  set  of  opportunities  —  possi 
bilities  —  liveabilities  —  a  sort  of  annual  mys 
tery,  or  Passion  Play,  of  the  End  of  Life.  Then 
we  slip  over  the  ridge-pole  into  Jan.  1,  2,  etc., 
and  begin  to  go  down  —  faster  and  faster  — 
and  forget  the  old  days  behind.  —  We  wish 
each  other  *  merry'  Xmas;  how  merry  do  we 
succeed  in  being?  Somebody  has  been  editorial- 
ing  that  we  have  no  business  to  wish  people, 
or  be  (except  children)  *  merry.'  I  deny  his 
overwise  assertion.  '  We  'd  ought  'o '  be  merry. 
I  can  conceive  a  considerable  number  —  or  sets 
—  of  circumstances  that  could  slide  into  this 
moment  and  make  me  merry.  Could  n't  you 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  271 

as  to  your  self?    I  was  merry  for  two  minutes 

and  a  half  this  morning,  when related  the 

anecdote  of  the  boy  whose  mother  caught  him 
in  a  lie,  and  tried  to  impress  the  story  of  Ana 
nias  on  him.  He  had  an  idiot  brother  named 
Melchisedek.  'How  that  story  would  have 
scared  Melchisedek!'  quoth  the  boy,  'It  don't 
scare  me  a  bit ! ' 

[On  the  back  of  a  Christmas  card,  represent 
ing  a  woodland  stream] :  — 

"This  is  the  bank  whereon  the  wild  Time  blows 
Where  poor  professors  might  forget  their  woes  — 
Where  they  their  wiser  faculties  might  find 
By  leaving  their  unwiser  Faculties  behind. 
Thither,  O  Dean,  oh!  thither  let  us  flee, 
And  build  no  more  a  U-ni-vers-i-tee; 
We'll  lie  at  ease,  all  quiet,  calm,  and  cool, 
And  yes  —  we'll  have  to  have  our  little  school, 
Line  upon  line  —  O,  it  will  be  too  utter! 
Our  little  schools  of  fishes  fried  in  butter!" 

Would  it  have  been  better  if  Sill  had  had 
his  wish  and  become  an  editorial  worker? 
Probably  not.  He  was  too  much  an  individual 
and  too  finely  organized  for  the  endless  routine 
of  the  desk :  — 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Dec.  27,  1885. 

DEAR  MR.   A ,  —  Put  this  sheet  away 

till  a  moment  of  (comparative)  leisure;  for  it  is 
not  regular  business  pertaining  to  manuscript. 


272  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

Take  it  with  a  cigar  -  -  It  often  occurs  to  me 
after  reading  the  "  Atlantic,"  to  comment  on 
some  article;  to  make  an  inquiry  of  a  writer; 
to  criticize  some  statement,  or  opinion;  or  to 
further  it  by  an  additional  fact  or  suggestion. 
I  am  moved  to  write  a  note  to  the  writer.  In 
such  a  case  I  think  of  the  Contributors'  Club; 
but  reject  the  idea,  thinking  the  matter  too 
small;  or  across  the  line  toward  "newspaper" 
matter,  rather  than  "magazine"  matter;  or 
too  brief. 

Many  other  readers  must  occasionally  have 
the  same  experience.  Why  not,  therefore,  have 
a  weekly  supplementary  "Contributors'  Club," 
or  "  Bric-A-Brackish "  issue  —  published  in 
"Atlantic  "  color  and  shape  —  a  kind  of  supple 
ment—or  "Party  call "  —  or  "  Staircase  Wit " 
or  "  Mother  Carey's  Chicken,"  hovering  around 
the  stern  of  the  big  ship.  A  place  to  put  choice 
odds  and  ends :  the  broken  food  that  is  too  good 
to  be  thrown  away,  but  not  good  enough  (or 
large  enough,  rather)  to  put  on  the  table  next 
time.  A  place  where  the  most  elephantine  con 
tributor  might  gambol  a  little.  Where  Miss 
Thomas's  sprites  might  "tread  a  light  cinque" 
—  if  that 's  what  they  did. 

Everybody  must  feel  (at  least  I  do  —  do 
not  you?)  the  crying  need  of  a  weekly  literary 
publication  that  shall  be  recherche  instead  of 
promiscuous.  As  good  as  the  "  Nation  "  in  that 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  273 

respect,  only  purely  literary.  See  what  we 
have:  The  "Literary  World,"  sort  o'  Philis 
tine,  heavy,  "more  geniality  than  light"  in  its 
atmosphere.  (What  a  devilish  —  literally - 
good  thing  that  was  of  the  "Nation"  critic's 
on  Howells's  Harper  debut!  Who  did  it?) 
Praising  everybody  and  everything  —  a  "  mush 
of  concession";  the  "Critic,"  very  bright  but 
Bohemianish  and  —  what? 

What  a  good  place  to  train  an  editor  under 
your  eye  and  hand  — in  this  "  Sub-Atlantic  "! 
Could  you  not  find  goodish  raw  material  in 
Andrew  Hedbrook  for  such  a  place?  But  this 
is  truly  only  an  afterthought.  The  opportun 
ity  for  the  thing  was  my  first  idea. 

Wishing  you  a  most  happy  New  Year, 
Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

The  scraps  to  Aldrich  and  the  unnamed  cor 
respondents  do  not  merely  disclose  Sill's  mod 
esty,  which  was  genuine  and  deep,  but  hint  at 
the  spiritual  unrest  which  seized  him  at  times 
and  was  due  in  no  small  measure  to  a  feeling  of 
isolation :  — 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Feb.  5,  1886. 

DEAR  MR.  A ,  —  I  have  no  idea  I  am 

always  able  to  just  "hit  it,"  but  I  send  pretty 
freely,  hoping  you  will  never  try  to  make  your- 


274  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

self  think  a  thing  of  mine  is  good,  but  will  throw 
out  whatever  "strikes"  you  as  dubious. 

Thank  you  for  the  friendly  suggestions  as 
to  "collected  poems."  I  shall  certainly  take  ad 
vantage  of  your  kind  offer  and  advise  with 
you  if  the  time  comes.  But  I  must  try  to  have 
something  better  worth  while,  first. 

I  am  glad  you  are  going  to  Europe  and  wish 
I  were  going  too.  Go  early  and  stay  late!  — 
The  opposite  of  Charles  Lamb's  procedure. 
But  I  shall  miss  your  occasional  notes  —  unless 
some  rainy  day  you  will  send  me  one  from  over 
there,  which  I  should  greatly  like.  But  I'm 
afraid  the  very  address  would  recall  only  manu 
scripts  and  the  daily  task. 

It  does  not  cease  to  make  me  abashed  and 
blushful  to  find  so  many  things  of  mine  in  the 
magazine.  I  only  wish  I  could  send  things  of  a 
quality  up  to  the  level  of  my  aspiration. 

You  have  my  heartiest  wishes  for  a  merry 
vacation  and  safe  return. 

With  the  summer  of  1886,  Sill  added  a  new 
correspondent  to  his  list,  to  whom  he  had  been 
drawn  sympathetically  by  some  distresses  of 
mind  or  body  from  which  she  was  suffering  and 
he  wrote  her  a  series  of  letters  full  of  good  cheer 
and  gayety  —  some  of  it,  especially  the  last  let- 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  275 

ter,  written  four  days  before  his  death,  touched 
with  true  heroism. 

The  drama  draws  toward  its  close,  all  un 
suspected  by  Sill  or  his  friends,  but  none  the 
less  endowing  these  last  letters  with  a  peculiar 
interest,  because  they  are  the  last  and  because 
they  stop  so  suddenly  and  untimely :  — 

CUY.  FALLS,  July  21,  '86  — MONDAY. 
What  color  are  your  eyes?  Are  they  witch- 
hazel?  In  [that]  they  seem  to  have  some  touch 
of  the  divining  rod.  If  I  should  tell  you  I  wrote 
"Individual  Continuity,"  then  you  could  not 
tell  anybody  you  didn't  know  —  and  how  can 
anybody  keep  anything  from  anybody  unless 
he  can  tell  them  "I  don't  know."  Or  do  you 
make  metaphysical  distinctions  as  to  certain- 
sure  knowledge,  and  are  you  capable  of  saying 
you  don't  know,  with  the  agnostic  mental  reser 
vation  that  there  don't  nobuddy  know  nothing? 
If  I  should  say  I  did  n't  write  it,  then  you  surely 
could  n't  say  you  did  n't  know  whether  I  did 
or  not.  Now  the  tree  of  knowledge  is  well 
known  to  be  the  tree  of  sorrow.  Blessed  be 
them  as  knows  nothing.  Besides,  I  don't  know 
as  anybody  can  know  for  sartin  sure  whether 
(interrupted  at  this  point  and  the  blots  mean 
that  somebody  left  my  fountain  pen  wrong  end 
up,  and  so  —  .  Do  you  use  an  "Ideal  Fountain 
Pen  "  ?  They  can  furnish  you  one  that  will  just 


276  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

exactly  suit  you)  —  whether  he  did  or  did  not 
write  any  given  thing.  Often  when  I  have 
written  a  sentence,  I  say  to  myself  —  who  said 
that?  In  what  book  did  I  read  that?  There's 
a  sentence  or  two,  by  the  way,  in  this  "  Contin 
uity"  article  (whoever  wrote  it)  that  it  seems 
to  me  I  have  seen  in  print  before.  About  na 
ture's  police  that  has  (?)  our  faces  in  a  rogue's 
gallery.  Where  have  I  seen  that?  I  wrote  a  bit 
of  verse  once,  "Lend  me  thy  fillet,  Love,  etc." 
(you  never  saw  it,  I  guess),  which  for  a  year 
bothered  me  because  I  felt  certain  I  had  seen  it 
somewhere.  But  it  has  gone  around  in  print 
and  neither  I  nor  anybody  else  has  discovered 
any  predecessor,  so  far  as  I  can  learn.  (I  would 
quote  some  more  of  it,  but  I  can't  recall  it.) 
-  So  you  (no  more  of  that  kind  of  paper)  are 
a  great  talker?  How  well  we  should  get  on,  for 
I  am  a  great  keeper-still.  Yet  I  don't  believe 
in  keeping  still.  I  can't  agree  with  George 
Sand  (in  "  Isidora  ")  that "  Quand  Fechange  de  la 
parole  n'est  pas  necessaire,  il  est  rarement  utile." 
Unless  one  add  to  it  that  a  considerable  amount 
of  it  is  always  necessary.  But  I  never  could  talk, 
myself.  I  am  like  poor  Josef  in  George  Sand's 
"Maitres  Sonneurs,"  who  couldn't  woo  in 
words,  but  give  him  his  musette.  If  I  could  play 
the  'cello  about  seventeen  hundred  times  as  well 
as  I  now  play  it  ill,  I  might  talk  with  that.  As 
to  letters  they  seem  to  take  so  confoundedly 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  277 

long  to  write.  It  is  really  no  longer  than  one 
would  be  in  talking,  but  being  only  one  end 
of  the  telephone  in  continuous  activity,  it 
seems  forever.  If  I  could  get  a  fountain  pen 
that  held  ideas  instead  of  ink,  so  that  I  could 
blow  it  full  in  a  wink  of  the  eye,  and  then  let 
somebody  else  skit  it  along  over  the  paper,  - 
or  if  we  had  that  machine  which  the  coming 
man  will  have,  —  he  never  can  be  a  come  man 
until  he  does  have  it,  —  which  shall  write  as 
fast  as  we  can  think  — ! 

I  like  what  you  tell  me  about  your  experi 
ence  with  the  mind  during  music.  I  have  never 
exchanged  views  on  that  topic  with  any  one  - 
never  heard  it  mentioned,  in  fact,  and  have 
wondered  how  it  is  with  others.  Some  day  we 
will  go  to  a  Symphony  concert  together  and 
I  will  turn  on  you  in  the  middle  of  something 
and  make  you  tell  me  what  you  are  thinking 
about. 

Expectant  attention  won't  explain  the  word 
difficulty  when  you  have  come  plump  upon  it 
unexpectedly  and  still  find  it  goes  wrong.  Will 
it?  It  is  an  interesting  phenomenon.  I  won 
der  if  we  don't  all  of  us  have  certain  pet  mis 
spellings  that  we  never  have  happened  to  get 
eradicated?  I  spelt  "  melancholy"  with  twoZZ's 
all  my  life  till  about  five  years  ago.  Happened 
to.  I  think  friends  ought  to  be  able  to  pick  up 
such  things  for  us.  But  they  won't.  They  're  all 


278  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

cowards.  Yes,  in  fact  all  the  club  things  in  Aug 
ust  "Atlantic"  are  of  my  brewing,  except  the 
44 Threshold  Flower"  and  I  wish  I  had  written 
that.  But  don't  tell.  And  as  to  Hedbrook,  say 
you  don't  know.  That  answer  always  sounds 
modest,  about  anything.  Besides,  you  don't, 
you  know. 

Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  Oct. 

.  .  .  Have  been  for  a  week  across  the  border 
into  Northwestern  Pennsylvania,  among  some 
wildish  baby-mountains  with  some  good  woods. 
.  .  .  Had  some  good  walks  in  fine  dark  rugged 
forest  places,  and  almost  could  imagine  it  was 
California.  It  makes  us  sentimental  and  home 
sick  when  that  occurs. 

After  an  hour  spent  in  straightening  out 
papers  —  cleaning  up  two  tables  (how  they 
get  rattled,  these  writing-tables,  if  one  does  not 
exercise  eternal  vigilance!)  I  sat  down  to  do 
some  "literary"  writing — but  the  spirits  refuse 
to  communicate  —  and  it  must  be  letterary, 
instead.  In  the  process  of  clearing  up  I  put  away 
a  volume  of  George  Sand's  correspondence, 
which  reminds  me  to  quote  (and  translate)  a  bit 
of  one  I  was  reading  last  night.  "You  believe 
in  the  greatness  of  women,  and  you  hold  them 
for  better  than  men.  For  my  part,  I  don't 


THE   CRAFTSMAN  279 

think  so.  Having  been  degraded,  it  is  impos 
sible  that  they  have  not  taken  the  [moeurs] 
morals  and  manners  of  slaves,  and  it  will  take 
more  time  to  lift  them  out  of  it  than  it  would 
have  been  necessary  for  men  to  raise  themselves. 
When  I  think  of  it  I  have  the  spleen;  but  I 
mean  not  to  live  too  much  in  the  present  mo 
ment.  We  must  not  be  too  much  beaten  down 
by  the  general  ill.  Have  we  not  affections,  pro 
found,  certain,  durable?" 

I  might  quote  also  the  end  of  the  letter: 
"Does  my  laziness  about  writing  discourage 
you?  But  you  know  very  well  how  this  fright 
ful  trade  of  the  scribbler  makes  you  take  a 
scunner  to  the  very  view  of  ink  and  paper." 

It  is  the  beautifullest  early-fall  weather  to 
day.  Ah  me  and  ochhone,  what  a  days-that- 
are-no-more-ishness  there  is  about  it.  You  don't 
exactly  have  it  in  California  —  the  leaves  on 
all  the  vines  have  been  crying  all  night  and 
hang  all  kind  o5  shamed  of  it  and  wilticated  - 
and  the  sunshine  is  yellow  and  still  —  no  more 
dance  in  it,  though  the  crickets  have  piped  unto 
it  all  the  morning.  Melons  are  ripe  and  grapes, 
and  the  coal  is  being  got  in  —  black  reminder 
of  the  frost  bite  to  come.  .  .  .This  weather  or 
sumpthin  or  other  makes  me  kind  o?  wishful  for 
a  ticket  to  California. 

I  am  coming  to  feel  that  the  one  sole  and 
only  mark  and  test  of  a  plebeian  (where  "all 


280  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

the  little  soul  is  dirt ")  is  this  sticking  them 
selves  forward.  And  that  the  only  thing  neces 
sary  to  prove  a  person,  to  me,  a  natural  noble 
man,  is  the  willingness  —  nay,  desire  —  to 
stay  out  of  sight  and  be  unannounced.  I  have  a 
perfect  loathing  .  .  .  for  these  people  that  do 
this  newspaper-puff  business  about  themselves. 
—  And,  by  the  way,  I  don't  like  this  thing  of 
small  poets  writing  sonnets  (signed  duly  with 
their  small  names)  to  bigger  ones.  Do  you? 
It's  getting  common  and  unclean.  And  the 
mutual  sonnetteering  of  the  small  ones  to  each 
other. 

Boo'ful  autumn  days.  "The  flying  gold  of 
the  autumn  woodlands  drift."  Soon  it  will  be 
"rotten  woodlands  drip  and  the  leaf  is  stamped 
in  clay."  But  we  won't  borrow  trouble.  .  .  . 
It's  always  pleasant  to  look  forward  to  winter 
and  think  one  may  do  some  bit  of  worth-while 
writing. 

Cur.  FALLS,  Oct.  9,  '86. 

How  am  I  going  to  impart,  or  intimate,  or 
break  gently  to  you  the  gorgonian  fact  that  I 
don't  more  than  half  like  "  Diana  "  ?  Now  why 
you  should  like  it  and  I  not  is  the  puzzling 
psychological  conundrum.  I  can  throw  but 
two  glimmers  on  it :  one,  that  it  is  written  by  a 
woman;  for  the  man  must  be  a  woman  in  dis 
guise,  it  seems  to  me.  The  other,  that  you  have 
got  used  to  a  certain  sort  of  straining  at  effect  in 


THE   CRAFTSMAN  281 

language —  a  kind  of  visible  effort  to  be  original 
and  surprisingly  fine  in  your  Boston  society. 

What  about  Meredith?  Is  he  really  known 
to  be  of  the  male  sex?  I  have  never  heard  a 
thing  about  him  (her).  Perhaps  it  is  only  the 
English  (or  Irish)  view  of  woman  that  goes 
agin  me.  You  see,  Diana  is  after  all  a  kind  of 
quick-witted  simpleton.  Now  I  hate  quick 
witted  simpletons. 

I  don't  like  the  way  the  book  has  of  blurt 
ing  out  about  things  that  are  not  meant  to  be 
indiscriminately  talked  about.  There  is  a  kind 
of  animalism  underlying  it  all. 

What  is  the  good  of  a  novelist  who  says  that 
somebody  went  late  to  the  theatre  and  just 
in  time  "to  meet  the  vomit"!  Good  Lord! 
And  I  think  the  scene  between  Dacier  and 
Diana  in  the  parlor,  where  there  is  the  long- 
drawn-out  fuss  about  kissing  and  pressing 
hands  and  other  performances,  is  silly  and 
sensual,  both.  If  one  is  going  to  out  with  the 
animal  matters,  I  like  them  said  out  frankly 
and  briefly  —  not  sort  of  dallied  with,  and 
slunk  away  from,  and  touch  and  goed  for  a 
half-dozen  paragraphs.  Oh,  I  'm  dead  sure  it  is 
a  woman  wrote  it.  No  man  would  have  sillied 
so  about  the  kissing  the  other  lover's  (the 
positively  the  last  lover's)  coat  sleeve,  and 
forgetting  she  was  tampering  with  such  a 
fierce  and  fiery  and  ferocious  and  fiddlesticky 


282  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

brute  and  tiger  and  monster  of  volcanic  pas 
sions  —  roused  even  through  a  thickness  of 
best  Scotch  all-wool  coat  sleeve,  plus  silesia 
lining,  plus  a  cotton  shirt,  plus  an  originally 
heavy  and  fine  but  somewhat  worn  and  shrunk 
(owing  to  incautious  washing  with  soapsuds 
and  being  ironed  the  wrong  way  of  the  goods) 
undershirt. 

Now  you  must  admit  that  it  takes  a  woman 
novelist  to  do  these  things.  And  I'll  tell  you 
why.  (Going  back  on  my  high  views  of  women? 
Not  a  bit  of  it.)  It's  because  women  are  so 
plaguey  smart,  they  can  write  novels  —  bright 
ones,  too,  with  power  in  'em  —  without  having 
ever  had  a  vestige  of  education.  A  mere  man 
can't  do  that.  And  the  education  saves  him 
from  writing  such  stuff  when  he  does  write. 

Oh,  come  now  —  I  '11  admit  I  read  this  story 
with  a  good  deal  of  interest  —  and  that  there 
are  memorable  things  in  it.  And  I  'm  going  to 
read  another  of  —  hers.  Which  shall  it  be? 

I  haven't  ventured  to  write  before,  be 
cause  I  inferred  you  were  so  busy  (for  I  can't 
but  conceive  you  as  pitching  in  head  over  heels 
into  the  first  of  a  year's  work)  that  I  did  n't 
think  you'd  more  than  glance  at  any  letter  I 
should  write.  I,  too,  have  been  busy  lately. 
But  not  so  much  so  but  that  I  shall  read  every 
word  of  any  epistle  I  may  get  from  you. 

Yours, 

E.  R.  S. 


THE   CRAFTSMAN  283 

C.  FALLS,  MONDAY  NIGHT,  Oct.  11,  '86. 

What  kind  of  a  woman  was  Diana  to  be  capa 
ble  of  going  off  and  betraying  Dacier's  confiden 
tial  politics  to  the  "  Times  "?  Igit?  The  reader 
feels  like  Dacier  —  he  does  n't  want  to  know  any 
more  about  her.  And  don't  you  get  tired  of  hear 
ing  that  a  character  was  always  so  brilliant  in 
speech,  so  dazzlingly  witty,  —  all  sparkle  and 
miraculous  repartee,  —  and  then  when  any 
specimens  are  quoted  (passim,  along  in  the 
book)  to  find  them  pretty  flat  and  very 
labored?  Nascitur  ridiculus  mus. 

What  kind  of  a  style  is  this:  "He  must  be 
mad,"  she  said,  "compelled  to  disburden  her 
self  in  a  congenial  atmosphere;  which,  however, 
she  inf rigidated  by  her  overflow  of  exclamatory 
wonderment  —  a  curtain  that  shook  volumin 
ous  folds,  leaving  Redworth  to  dreams  of  the 
treasure  forfeited." 

The  book  has  your  name  on  it  still,  in  sign 
I  was  to  send  it  back,  so  I  shall  not  quote,  but 
refer  to,  the  last  column  and  a  half  of  p.  51  and 
first  1/27  52,  to  ask  if  that  is  witty  and  viva 
cious  and  charming,  or  —  awfully  flat  and 
trashy.  Do  they  do  that  in  just  that  way  at 
Boston  parties?  If  so  I'd  rather  smash  my 
china  in  the  solitude  of  my  chamber. 

But  how  "rammed  with"  ideas  the  man  is 
—  such  as  they  are.   A  kind  of  seething  brain  — 
kept  feverishly  seething,  with  far-fetched  allu- 


284  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

sions  all-jumbled-together  comparisons  —  as  if 
soaked  in  green  tea  and  genius  and  stupidity 
and  brandy  and  tobacco.  If  I  seem  to  be 
swearing  at  things,  remember  the  pen  is 
mightier  when  he  swored. 

I  would  give  a  dollar  and  fifteen  cents  to 
spend  the  rest  of  the  evening  talking  with  you 
—  about  novels  and  people  and  a5  that. 
" Lonesome  "?  You  can't  be  —  can  you?  —  in 
such  a  crowd  of  brains  and  hearts.  Or  do  you 
"  loathe  the  squares  and  streets,  and  the  faces 
that  one  meets  "? 

I  wish  you  could  have  gone  to  the  woods 
with  me  this  afternoon.  Dark  with  thick  oaks 
-still  unchanged  of  leaf  —  with  clumps  of 
hickory  bright  masses  of  solid  yellow  —  as  if 
great  wedges  of  sunshine  cleaving  the  woods. 
Some  western  tints  that  you  don't  have — 
Peppridge  lieblich  red  —  and  the  maples  that 
you  do  have  —  but  all  the  trees  a  size  or  two 
bigger  and  taller  than  in  any  New  England 
woods  I  have  seen.  Still,  still,  so  that  one  hears 
a  leaf  drop  here,  or  another  there,  and  then  a 
nut  fall,  and  then  a  squirrel  leap  from  one  tree- 
top  to  another.  But  I  would  gladly  have  con 
fided  to  you  "how  sweet"  the  "solitude." 
Can  you  get  any  real  companionship  out  of 
the  beautiful  young  people  ?  or  do  you  find,  as 
I,  that  the  telephone  wire  crosses  an  abysm  of 
inexperience  on  their  part,  and  won't  carry. 


THE   CRAFTSMAN  285 

" Hello !  What  is  life?  "  (Ans.)  "  lo  —  brrrrr  — 
m-m-m-m  —  zh-zh-zh  —  brrmmzzzz  —  bang !  " 
How  many  times  a  week  do  you  "  go  out "? 

("  Demanding  thus  to  bring  relief  — 
What  kind  of  life  is  this  I  lead?  ") 

What  is  that  quotation?  I  can't  place  it,  or 
be  sure  it's  right. 

Read  "Tartarin  sur  les  Alpes,"  Daudet. 

What  a  staggering  lot  of  books  the  publish 
ers  turn  out  on  a  weary  world !  What  gabblers 
we  are !  Gabblers  that  write,  and  gabblers  that 
read  —  for  no  doubt  it 's  the  demand  that  cre 
ates  the  supply.  But  oh,  for  an  hour,  or  a 
dozen,  of  good,  honest,  unrestrained  talk  — 
about  hens,  or  buttons,  or  anything. 
Yours  heartily, 

E.  R.  S. 

CUT.  FALLS,  Oct.  26,  '86. 

"  What,  silent  still,  and  silent  all?  "  You  never 
get  mad,  do  you?  And  retire  to  your  tent  like 
Achilles?  I  must  Hector  you  then  till  you  come 
out  and  fight.  (Absit  omen!  I  don't  want  to  be 
hauled  round  Boston  by  the  heels.) 

What  would  you  rather  study  if  you  had  no 
thing  to  do  but  study,  and  a  serene  and  com 
fortable  mind  to  study  with?  If  you  were  like 
the  old  Boy  who  was  always  going  to  retire 
and  "read  the  authors"?  —  Or  —  to  enlarge 


286  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

the  question  —  what  would  you  do  if  you  could 
do  just  as  you  were  a  mind  to?  - 

Questions  suggested  by  my  having  just  struck 
on  a  new  branch  of  a  favorite  line  of  study  with 
me.  Grimm's  "Teutonic  Mythology."  (Late 
edition  by  somebody  who  keeps  referring  to 
"  Appendix  "  and  then  there  is  nt  any  Appen 
dix.)  You've  read  Max  Miiller,  maybe,  and 
some  of  his  Indian  translations?  This  com 
parison  of  Religions  —  especially  the  Ancient 

-  when  one  goes  at  it  with  his  common  sense 
about  him  (not  "  leaving  off  his  wit  and  going 
in  his  —  what  was  it?  —  doublet  and  hose  "?) 

-  not  expecting  to  find  any  occult  new  light, 
but  only  new  exhibitions  of  man's  perrennial 
cravings,  and  guessings,  and  embodyings,  and 
human-life  projectings! 

Save  all  your  earnings  and  compel  an  easier 
set  of  circumstances  another  year:  Five  pupils 
somewhere,  with  three  good  teachers  to  each 
—  reporting  to  you  once  a  fortnight.  And  I 
will  live  next  door  and  keep  a  Tennis  Court. 
Oh,  Yes! 

Yours, 

E.  R.  S.  !  !  ! 

C.  FALLS,  Dec.  7,  '86  —  TUBS.  NIGHT. 
I  am  having  this  oddish  experience  with  re 
gard  to  you:  that  the  more  I  know  of  you  the 
less  I  know  you.    But  I  suppose  nobody  ever 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  287 

made  anybody  out  through  letters.  (And  per 
haps  not  in  any  other  way  —  either!) 

We  have  steam  up  at  last,  and  the  mercury 
may  go  down  outside  to  zero  (as  it  has  done 
lately).  We  keep  warm  in  the  house.  —  I  wish 
I  knew  what  you  know.  I  suppose  you  know 
Browning  (I  have  not  got  hold  of  your  notes 
yet,  to  see),  but  what  else?  Have  you  gone  into 
the  late-years  explorations  of  old  Egypt  and 
Assyria?  Have  you  read  the  translations  in  the 
"Records  of  the  Past, "  and  Bunsen  and  Birch 
and  Rawlinson,  etc.?  There  is  a  fascinating 
difficulty  in  getting  at  any  facts  about  the  real 
men  and  women  and  their  lives,  for  all  the 
inscriptions  and  records.  It  interests  me  espe 
cially  as  comparative  religion  and  comparative 
ethics.  I  want  to  talk  with  you  about  ethics. 
How  do  you  govern  your  life,  anyway?  By  two 
or  three  amiable  feelings,  as  Sanctissima  does, 
and  will  have  it  that  we  all  must  or  go  to  perdi 
tion?  When  you  have  a  girl  that  does  n't  care 
what  she  does,  or  whether  she  and  things  in 
general  go  to  smash  or  not,  what  "why"  do 
you  bring  to  bear  on  her? 

The  trouble  about  the  books  is  the  rhetori 
cal  flourish  of  them.  Here  is  Samuel  Johnson's 
new  book  about  the  Persian  Religion  —  every 
thing  buried  under  rubbishy  rhetoric  and  fine 
Bostonese.  Lovely  to  me  is  the  style  of  the  man 
who  just  says  yea  and  nay  and  there  leaves 


288  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

it.  Because  I  have  reached  an  age  when  I  want 
to  know  what  is  the  plain  truth  about  things. 
Which  leads  me  to  say  I  should  like  (or  as  an 
old  Yankee  friend  of  mine  used  always  to  say 
- 1  should  admire)  to  look  into  that  crystal- 
backed  watch  of  yours.  I  hear  it  tick  —  in 
your  letters.  I  want  to  shee  wheels  go  wound. 
Neither  have  I  read  Bagehot's  Milton.  Must  do 
it.  Have  read  a  good  deal  of  Masson's  tremen 
dous  "Life,"  have  you?  For  Milton  is  great, 
to  me.  And  Bagehot  reminds  me  of  Jevons. 
His  memoirs  (mostly  letters)  worth  reading, 
or  skimming  from  one  good  thing  to  another. 
Dry  but  human.  He  had  a  scheme  (and  tried 
it  for  a  while)  of  hiring  himself  out  for  two 
shillings  an  hour  to  explore  things  for  people  in 
the  British  Museum.  I  wish  I  had  known  it! 
Did  you  never  feel  that  you  'd  like  to  employ  a 
dozen  or  two  people  to  look  up  things  for  you 
in  libraries? 

Hochheimer.  I  don't  believe  in  stimulants 
for  you  and  me.  They  are  only  spurs  to  the 
Arabian  —  who  needs  only  the  touch  of  the 
naked  heel.  If  you  spur  to-night,  you'll  lag 
to-morrow  to  pay  for  it.  We'll  do  more  in  the 
long  run  for  keeping  the  steadier  gait. 

But  friends  of  "the  other  sex  "  —  good  Lord! 
why  not?  People  take  this  matter  of  sex  too 
seriously.  It  is  only  a  convenient  appliance  for 
regulating  posterity.  Aside  from  that  (and 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  289 

pretty  much  everything  is  aside  from  that), 
why  should  we  have  it  always  in  mind?  Ah, 
we  shall  do  all  that  better,  one  of  these  fine 
days! 

The  dream  of  the  symphony  has  impressed 
me  a  good  deal.  I  am  thankful  to  you  for  mak 
ing  the  effort  to  put  it  down  in  words.  I  wonder 
if  it  is  on  the  surface  that  we  all  differ  —  and 
whether  if  we  get  in  among  the  intricacies  of 
the  mind  we  are  all  the  same.  As  if  we  all  lived 
round  a  mountain  —  and  we  take  each  other 
in  through  labyrinthine  passages  —  dim  vaults 
—  hollow  spaces  of  shadow  —  and  suddenly, 
the  open  heart  of  the  mountains,  lighted  up  and 
full  of  music  —  "  this  is  my  heart ! "  "  Why,  - 
this  too  is  mine  "  —for  the  centre  was  common 
to  all. 

Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

This  series  of  letters  may  be  interrupted  for 
two  fragmentary  notes  to  old  friends  in  Califor 
nia,  the  second  —  to  Mr.  Palmer  —  gathering  a 
certain  solemnity  from  being  the  last  message 
to  the  Pacific  Slope:  - 

"I  think  of  you  as  'walking  alone  like  the 
rhinoceros,'  more  and  more  as  the  years  go  on. 
For  in  face  of  the  almanac,  the  years  do  seem  to 
go  on  —  hold  back  as  we  may.  When  I  think 
how  long  I  have  been  away  from  Berkeley  I 


290  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

am  driven  to  wonder  that  I  ever  hear  from  any 
friend  there.  For  Time  carries  not  only  a 
scythe  and  mows,  but  a  hatchet  and  splits.  A 
good  ordinary  quality  of  love  seems  to  last  in 
this  world  about  a  year  and  a  half  or  two  years 
of  absence  —  a  prime  quality  of  friendship  from 
five  to  seven !  Hail,  O  Time !  thou  splitter  apart 
of  mortals.  Splititandi  salutamusl" 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  January  1,  1887. 

I  don't  like  the  years  to  go  so.  I  was  not 
half  done  with  '86.  .  .  . 

I  read  this  in  Turgenieff's  "Raufbold"  last 
night:  "  Er  hatte  viel  gelesen;  und  so  bildete  er 
sich  ein  er  besitze  Erfahrung  und  Klugheit;  er 
legte  nicht  den  leisesten  Zweifel  dass  alle  seine 
Voraussetzungen  richtig  seien;  er  ahnte  nicht 
dass  das  Leben  unendlich  mannigf altig  ist,  und 
sich  niemals  wiederholt." 

So,  to  live  is  more  than  to  read,  and  one 
might  know  all  things  and  miss  of  everything. 
And  so,  if  life  is  endlessly  manifold,  we  may 
hope  for  good  and  great  things,  here  or  here 
after. 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  Feb.  16,  '87. 

Do  you  mean  to  say  you  have  the  bobolink 

already?    No  bobby  would  be  fool  enough  to 

come  here  yet  awhile.   It  is  midwinter;  except 

that  we  have  less  sunshine,  even,  now  —  and 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  291 

mud  instead  of  snow.  When  the  bobolinks  have 
come  and  the  bluebirds  and  the  song  sparrows 
—  oh  my !  For  my  part  I  am  meditating  flight 
to  Colorado  Springs  for  the  months  of  March 
and  April  —  Mrs.  Sill  and  me.  Join  us?  Know- 
est  anything  about  Colorado  in  spring?  I  don't; 
but  it  can't  be  worse  than  Ohio.  Gastritis?  I 
don't  know  it  —  by  name;  but  I  guess  I  must 
have  had  it  for  some  two  months  now.  Does 
it  stand  for  indigestion  (or  un-digestion),  mys 
terious  sorenesses  and  aches  all  over  one's  cor- 
porality;  symptoms  of  all  the  horrid  diseases 
one  has  ever  read  about;  fathomless  depression 
of  spirits;  wide-awake  nightmares  from  day 
light  to  breakfast  time,  planning  out  the  details 
of  all  the  woes  that  are  imminent  to  body  and 
mind? 

If  such  as  these  thy  spirit  move,  then  come 
with  me  and  be  my  —  fellow  patient. 

It 's  a  hard  thing  to  find  out  any  exact  fact 
in  this  world.  No  man,  woman  or  book  can  tell 
the  least  about  what  degree  of  the  thermometer 
one  can  expect  in  Colorado  in  March.  Do  you 
not  need  to  cut  and  run  somewhere?  Could  n't 
you  leave  for  a  month  or  six  weeks?  "  He  that 
fights  and  runs  away  shall  live  to  fight  another 
day,"  you  know.  I  think  we  shall  start  in  about 
a  week.  Write  me  quickly  how  you  do.  Who  is 
your  doctor?  I  saw  Dr.  A.  L.  Loomis  in  New 
York.  He  is  first-class. 


292  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

We  are  coming  to  last  things.  The  note  below 
to  Aldrich  was  his  last  communication  with  an 
editor,  as  the  note  that  follows  was  probably 
the  last  he  wrote  to  anybody,  and  the  visit  to 
New  York  was  his  last  journey  from  home  ex 
cept  that  to  the  hospital  where  he  died.  Of 
this  farewell  visit  to  Gotham  Mr.  Holt  wrote 
in  a  letter  sometime  later :  — 

"The  'odi  prqfanum  vulgus  et  arceo9  of  an 
other  poet,  used  to  be,  to  a  marked  degree,  his 
feeling.  When  he  was  in  New  York,  a  few 
weeks  before  his  death,  all  this  had  become 
wonderfully  changed.  He  was  at  a  hotel  on 
Fifth  Avenue,  and  astonished  me  by  appear 
ing  in  a  high  hat.  He  told  me  that  he  had 
come  for  needed  rest  after  caring  for  sick 
friends. 

"I  said,  still  more  astonished:  'Why,  some 
years  ago,  you  told  me  that  the  rush  of  life  in 
New  York  actually  made  you  physically  ill; 
and  you  gave  that  as  your  reason  for  hurrying 
through  here  once  without  even  coming  to  see 
me.' 

"He  answered:  'Yes,  it  used  to  be  so.  I  was 
thoroughly  morbid.  I  understand  it  all  now. 
But  I  've  outgrown  it.  I  don't  want  any  better 
recreation  now  than  to  sit  here  and  watch  the 
stream  of  life  go  by.' 

"Many  other  things  united  with  this  to 
satisfy  me  that  he  had  at  last  become  a  citizen 


THE  CRAFTSMAN  293 

of  the  real  world,  instead  of  trying  to  live  in 
worlds  that  he  tried  to  make  for  himself." 

CUYAHOGA  FALLS,  O.,  Feb.  9,  1887. 

MY   DEAR   MR.  A ,  —  Thank   you   for 

the  Club  manuscript.    I  am  sorry  to  have 
troubled  you  about  it. 

Thank  you,  too,  for  your  friendly  incite 
ment  as  to  writing.  I  shall  be  glad  to  pay  heed 
thereto  as  soon  as  I  can  get  into  working  order 
again.  For  two  months  I  have  been  quite  out 
of  sorts.  I  am  just  back  from  a  fortnight  in 
New  York,  where  some  medical  advice  and 
some  Wagner  operas,  and  eke  some  symphon 
ies,  did  me  good;  and  I  hope  to  be  bombarding 
you  with  proses  and  verses  before  long. 
Heartily  yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

The  Devil  was  well;  the 

Devil  a  poet  would  be: 
The  Devil  fell  sick,  and 

Devil  a  poet  was  he! 


CUT.  FALLS,  Feb.  23,  '87. 

I  find  we  are  to  be  delayed  about  going 
to  Colorado  Springs  for  two  weeks  probably. 
This  interval  I  shall  spend  in  Cleveland,  at 
tending  to  some  necessary  business  there.  I 
hope  to  hear  from  you  there  —  address  P.  O. 
Do  you  think  you're  well  enough  yet  to  be 


294  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

trotting  around  the  country  lecturing?  Yet 
it  has  compensations  of  good  mental  effect  on 
body.  Probably  all  you  need  is  outdoor  air 
and  fun.  A  bluebird  heard  here  yesterday  and 
a  peewee!  Frosty  for  their  poor  little  toes! 
What  do  you  know  of  Colorado  in  April  and 
May?  Florida  is  damp,  malarious,  and  noth 
ing  to  do,  I  hear. 

Yours, 

E.  R.  SILL. 

The  end  was  unexpected  and  shocking.  Sill 
had  gone  up  to  Cleveland  to  the  hospital,  there 
to  undergo  a  minor  operation  which  was  per 
formed  about  February  24.  It  was  apparently 
a  success  and  he  seemed  to  be  recovering, 
when,  whether  as  a  result  of  oversight  on  the 
part  of  the  nurse  in  charge,  or  of  some  unex 
pected  weakness  in  his  constitution,  he  suffered 
a  relapse  and  died  on  the  27th. 


IX 

AVE  ATQUE  VALE 

SILL'S  death  left  his  friends  inconsolable;  so 
incomplete  his  life,  so  needless  seemed  his  end. 
They  were  so  confident,  so  happily  expectant, 
of  his  future,  and  now,  cut  off  in  the  full  exer 
cise  of  his  growing  power,  he  was  gone,  "and 
hath  not  left  his  peer."  So  it  seemed  to  them  in 
1887,  —  he  was  to  them  the  fittest  to  carry 
forward  the  torch  of  poetry.  Not  that  he  had 
achieved  his  fame:  that  has  been  growing 
since,  he  might  in  fact  have  described  himself 
without  bitterness,  in  the  words  Hawthorne 
had  used  forty  years  earlier,  as  "the  most  ob 
scure  man  of  letters  in  America."  He  had  cared 
little  for  fame:  fame  had  cared  as  little  for  him; 
and  outside  a  small  group  of  discerning  lovers 
of  poetry  the  name  of  Sill  was  unknown  in  the 
world  of  letters. 

It  is  perhaps  an  idle  question  to  ask  why  to 
his  friends  the  sense  of  loss  was  so  poignant. 
Was  it  not  enough  that  he  was  gone  and  they 
were  the  poorer?  But  the  quick,  eager  spirit 
was  so  untimely  taken  off,  before  its  full  fruit 
age  and  expression.  All  the  unfulfilled  promise 
of  his  nature  loomed  before  them  as  a  tangible 


296  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

loss.  They  knew  he  had  not  beat  his  music  out; 
nor  fully  conquered  his  old  inhibitions  and  the 
checks  and  hamperings  of  doubt.  It  was  plain 
that  he  had  not  gained  serenity,  and  had 
never  resolved  into  moral  unity  that  duality 
and  conflict  of  temperament  which  prevented 
full-throated  song.  The  unrest  and  barren 
ness  of  the  time,  the  chill  of  doubt,  the  ag 
gressive  agnosticism  of  his  generation  had 
often  laid  constraint  upon  him.  But  they  had 
seen  him  emerging  into  fuller  power;  they  felt 
the  growing  sweep  of  mind,  the  firmer  hold  on 
life  and  its  meanings;  they  looked  in  confidence 
for  fuller  tones,  for  a  more  sustained  and  loftier 
song. 

Were  they  deceived?  I  think  not.  The 
figure  that  emerges  in  the  letters  and  autobio 
graphical  jottings  is  that  of  a  finely  tempered, 
aspiring  spirit,  attuned  to  all  ideals  —  loving 
truth  and  emulous  of  perfection,  continuing  the 
struggle  from  year  to  year  to  gain  mastery  of 
his  resources  and  his  art. 

It  is  a  very  engaging  figure.  In  his  prime  as 
in  his  youth  he  was  a  handsome  man,  slender, 
straight,  and  alert.  He  had  abundant  brown 
hair,  large,  melancholy  gray  eyes,  and  a  face 
rather  pale.  He  gave  the  impression  always 
of  a  refined,  delicate,  even  somewhat  fragile, 
creature,  so  that  Howells,  who  saw  him  but 
once,  remembers  him  as  "a  still,  shy,  delicate 


AVE  ATQUE  VALE  297 

presence. "  By  the  time  he  was  forty  he  had  had 
several  break-downs  from  overwork,  and  had 
established  habits  of  cautious  regard  for  his 
health  which  of  course  reacted  upon  his  atti 
tude  toward  life.  His  movements  were  quick 
and  precise,  all  his  nerves  and  muscles  being 
apparently  most  accurate  in  their  adjustments. 
His  laugh  was  spontaneous  and  contagious,  his 
face  was  mobile,  and  his  talk  was  illustrated 
with  inconspicuous  but  frequent  gesture.  For 
all  his  fragile  health  he  was  an  outdoors  man, 
fond  of  trees  and  fields,  keenly  observant  of 
leaf  and  flower;  bird  and  beast.  He  has  himself 
given  us  some  hints  of  his  personal  peculiarities 
in  one  of  his  little  essays  originally  printed  in 
the  "Atlantic." 

"For  my  own  part,  at  least,  I  like  to  know 
that  I  am  not  so  eccentric  as  I  may  have  feared 
in  various  little  'tricks  and  manners'  of  my 
body  or  my  mind.  I  am  always  pleased  to  meet 
people  who  wear  their  thumbs  inside  their  shut 
hand;  and  who  have  square-toed  shoes;  and 
who  like  the  taste  of  some  cates  when  a  little 
burnt;  and  who  reluct  at  shaking  hands;  and 
who  never  sharpen  the  lead  of  a  pencil;  and 
who  say  'good-morning'  to  the  servants;  and 
who  reject  the  use  of  a  spoon  as  being  a  thing  to 
take  powders  in,  or  the  milder  nourishments 
of  helpless  infancy." 

But  singularly   enough   the  most  striking 


298  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

portrait  of  Sill  I  have  found  is  in  a  brief  descrip 
tion  of  an  English  poet  who  died  in  the  same 
year  that  Sill  graduated  from  college.  I  mean 
that  remarkable  prototype  of  the  American 
poet  —  Arthur  Hugh  Clough  —  whose  biog 
rapher  writes  of  him :  — 

"His  was  a  character  not  easy  to  describe, 
whose  charm  was  so  personal  that  it  seems  to 
evaporate  when  translated  into  words.  He 
was  a  singular  combination  of  enthusiasm  and 
calmness,  of  thoughtfulness  and  imagination, 
of  speech  and  silence,  of  seriousness  and 
humor.  .  .  . 

"On  special  occasions  he  would  pour  out 
the  accumulation  of  his  mind,  but  most  often 
the  stream  remained  hid,  and  only  came  to  the 
surface  in  his  poetry,  or  in  little  incisive 
phrases,  most  apt  to  engrave  themselves 
sharply  on  the  minds  of  his  hearers.  .  .  .  His 
poems  tell  us  of  his  perplexities,  his  divided 
thoughts,  his  uncertainties;  those  who  remem 
ber  him  will  think  rather  of  his  simple  direct 
ness  of  speech  and  action,  the  clearness  of  his 
judgment  on  any  moot  point;  above  all,  it  is 
remarkable  how  unanimous  all  those  who  knew 
him  are  in  expressing  their  feeling  of  his  entire 
nobleness,  his  utter  purity  of  character." 

This  was  the  man  to  whom  Sill  might  have 
addressed  a  poem  that  tells  so  much  of  him 
self:— 


AVE  ATQUE  VALE  299 

To  the  Unknown  Soul 

0  soul,  that  somewhere  art  my  very  kin, 
From  dusk  and  silence  unto  thee  I  call: 

1  know  not  where  thou  dwellest:  if  within 
A  palace  or  a  hut;  if  great  or  small 

Thy  state  and  store  of  fortune;  if  thou'rt  sad 
This  moment,  or  most  glad; 

The  lordliest  monarch  or  the  lowest  thrall. 


But  well  I  know  —  since  thou  'rt  my  counterpart  — 
Thou  bear'st  a  clouded  spirit;  full  of  doubt 

And  old  misgiving,  heaviness  of  heart 
And  loneliness  of  mind;  long  wearied  out 

With  climbing  stairs  that  lead  to  nothing  sure, 

With  chasing  lights  that  lure, 

In  the  thick  murk  that  wraps  us  all  about. 

As  across  many  instruments  a  flute 

Breathes  low,  and  only  thrills  its  selfsame  tone, 
That  wakes  in  music  while  the  rest  are  mute, 

So  send  thy  voice  to  me:  Then  I  alone 
Shall  hear  and  answer;  and  we  two  will  fare 
Together,  and  each  bear 

Twin  burdens,  lighter  now  than  either  one. 

The  longing  for  perfect  companionship  — 
the  verses  just  quoted  were  originally  a  pend 
ant  to  a  brief  essay  entitled  "Wanted  —  A 
Friend"  -  was  a  phase  of  his  wistful  idealism. 
Not  that  he  was  without  friends.  Never  man 
had  warmer,  more  loyal,  or  more  steadfast 
friends.  Besides  that  first  intimate,  Damon 
and  Pythias  relation,  closer  than  a  brother's, 
with  his  classmate  Shearer,  which  beginning  in 
college  lasted  throughout  Shearer's  life,  there 


300  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

were  his  friendships  with  Williams  and  Dexter 
and  Baldwin  and  Holt,  of  the  Yale  group,  with 
Palmer  and  Kellogg  and  Royce  and  McLean, 
of  California,  not  one  of  which  was  broken  till 
death  severed  the  tie.  His  capacity  for  friend 
ship  lay  partly  in  a  flashing  responsiveness,  a 
lightning  readiness  to  catch  another's  thought 
and  join  in  sympathetic  understanding.  Says 
his  friend  Williams:  "I  never  knew  anybody 
else  who  caught  one's  idea  so  promptly  as  he. 
In  all  our  talks  on  innumerable  topics,  I  never 
had  in  a  single  instance  to  explain  my  mean 
ing  to  Sill.  He  anticipated  my  idea  before  it 
was  half  expressed.  And  it  was  so  in  the  case 
of  everybody  with  whom  he  came  in  contact." 
Holt  says:  "  Sill  and  Shearer  did  more  for  the 
culture  and  character  of  the  class  than  did  all 
the  rest  of  the  college,  faculty  included." 

Deeper  than  this  lay  what  was  the  central 
and  dominant  motive  of  his  life  —  the  desire 
to  serve.  Just  as  his  mind  ran  to  meet  another's 
thought,  his  whole  nature  ran  to  meet  an 
other's  need.  He  longed  to  help.  The  desire 
runs  like  a  refrain  through  his  poems  — 

"I  would  be  satisfied  if  I  might  tell 

Before  I  go, 
That  one  warm  word,  —  how  I  have  loved  them  well, 

Could  they  but  know! 

And  would  have  gained  for  them  some  gleam  of  good: 
Have  sought  it  long;  still  seek,  —  if  but  I  could! 

Before  I  go." 


AVE  ATQUE  VALE  301 

It  runs  no  less  plain  and  strong  through  his 
life.  "I  often  think,"  he  writes  from  Cuyahoga 
Falls,  "when  I  fidget  after  doing  more  work 
and  more  good  —  Oh,  well.  One  must  n't  hope 
for  the  chance  to  do  too  much  more  than  the 
average  man.  Now  the  average  man  does  n't 
do  anything."  And  again,  "I  am  busy  getting 
up  a  village  aid  society  —  awful  weather  for 
poor  people  without  even  potatoes  and  no 
blankets.  Also  making  a  new  campaign  for  my 
struggling  village  library.  ...  It 's  a  hard  world 
to  really  do  anything  in  —  but  Lord,  how  easy 
to  talk!" 

This  was  the  spirit  that  led  him  to  send 
out  his  poems  unsigned  and  made  him  shrink 
from  any  collection  of  them  into  a  book. 
He  feared  and  hated  mere  publicity.  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  appraise  his  work.  Most  of  it 
is  lyric  and  stamped  with  the  mood  of  the 
singer:  no  single  work  ample  in  plan,  of  large 
design  and  sustained  power  of  execution  ar 
rests  the  attention.  Yet  the  "Collected 
Poems,"  together  with  the  volume  of  selected 
"Prose,"  form  no  inconsiderable  achieve 
ment  in  authorship.  And  it  is  of  a  definite 
type;  the  seal  of  New  England  is  upon  it 
all  —  the  mark  of  restraint,  clarity  and 
moral  elevation.  Already  time  is  sifting 
it,  and  some,  perhaps  much,  of  it  will  dis 
appear;  but  much  bids  fair  to  last.  Certain 


302  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL 

of  his  shorter  poems  like  "  Truth  at  Last," 
"Life,"  "Sibylline  Bartering,"  "The  Things 
that  will  not  Die,"  "  The  Secret,"  have  been 
widely  quoted  and  reprinted  in  a  score  of 
forms,  often  without  any  reference  to  their 
authorship;  in  many  cases  it  is  likely  with  no 
idea  of  their  author's  name  or  history.  His 
two  most  generally  known  poems  —  those  we 
mentioned  at  the  beginning  of  this  record  — 
"Opportunity"  and  "The  Fool's  Prayer,"  are. 
known  by  thousands  of  people  who  have  been 
chastened  by  them  and  had  their  hearts  lifted 
up  and  their  spirits  purified  by  them,  yet  have 
never  heard  of  their  author.  That  is  as  he 
would  have  wished.  He  would  have  accepted 
his  own  doctrine :  — 

"Let  the  great  forces,  wise  of  old, 
Have  their  whole  way  with  thee, 
Crumble  thy  heart  from  its  hold, 
Drown  thy  life  in  the  sea. 
And  eeons  hence,  some  day, 
The  love  thou  gavest  a  child, 
The  dream  in  a  midnight  wild, 
The  word  thou  wouldst  not  say  — 
Or  in  a  whisper  no  one  dared  to  hear, 
Shall  gladden  the  earth  and  bring  the  golden  year." 

Sill  came  of  Puritan  stock;  he  was  of  the  best 
New  England  strain;  he  was  trained,  as  his 
father  before  him,  at  Yale.  It  is  enough  to  say 
that  he  was  bred  true  to  type.  He  came  from 
the  proud  little  town  of  Windsor.  She  may 


AVE  ATQUE  VALE  303 

gladly  record  his  name  among  her  sons:  for  he 
is  fit  to  hold  a  place  with  her  best  —  with  the 
Wolcotts,  the  Allyns,  the  Rowlands,  the  Ed- 
wardses,  the  Grants,  and  the  Ellsworths.  They 
would  not  deny  him  a  place  in  their  company, 
—  not  the  procession  of  the  Wolcotts,  gracious 
gentlemen  all,  nor  Jonathan  Edwards  the  great 
theologian  who  towered  in  intellect  above  his 
contemporaries  like  a  mountain  peak,  nor  even 
the  Chief  Justice  who  stood  worthily  beside 
Washington  himself.  They  all  served  their  day 
and  generation,  and  their  descendant  and  fellow 
townsman  bore  himself  like  one  of  them. 


THE   END 


INDEX 


Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  13,  95, 
190;  letters  to,  227,  229,  231, 
235,  236,  246,  247,  249,  250, 
251,  253,  257,  264,  265,  266, 
271,  273,  293. 

"Alice  in  Wonderland,"  125. 

Anonymity,  advantages  of,  231 
235,  244,  246. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  6,  175. 

"Atlantic  Monthly,"  the,  6, 13, 
95,  181,  190,  191,  192,  193, 
194,  215,  235,  249,  272,  278. 

Baldwin,  Simeon  E.,  12;  letters 

to,  86,  200. 
Berkeley,  Cal.,  Sill's  life  there, 

158-89. 
"Bohemian   Glass,"   105,   108, 

112. 
Boston  Music  Hall,  97,  98. 

Carlyle,  Jane  Welch,  208. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  Sill's  indebt 
edness  to,  25,  32,  153. 

"Cheerfulness  of  Birds,  The," 
215-18. 

Christianity,  56,  77  el  seq. 

Civil  War,  the,  82. 

Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  298. 

Cuyahoga,  Falls,  9.  88,  215, 
220. 

Dexter,  F.  B.,  letters  to,  55,  58, 

71,  120,  182,  199. 
"Diana    of    the    Crossways," 

280,  283. 


Eliot,  George,  181,  267. 
Emerson,  R.  W.,  143, 152,  209, 
230. 

Folsom,    Cal.,    52;    Sill's    life 

there,  59,  60,  61. 
Fuller,  William  H.,  230. 

Germans,  the,  and  their  schools, 

175;     compared     with     the 

French,  224. 
Gilman,  Daniel  C.,  169,  269; 

letters  to,  170,  171,  173,  176. 

187,  259. 
Greek  letter  societies,  19,  22. 

Harvard   Divinity  School,  80, 

88. 
"Hedbrook,  Andrew,"  249, 250, 

252,  257,  265,  273,  278. 
"Hermitage,  The,"  Sill's   first 

book,  80,  90,  91,  100,  178. 
Holt,  Henry,  letters  to,  67,  69, 

75,  80,  88,  90,  92,  95,  99, 101, 

102,  118,  123,  168,  178,  179, 

181,  230,  238,  240,  255,  260, 

269. 
Howells,  W.  D.,  196,  296. 

Immortality,  36,  76,  212. 
"In  Memoriam"  77,  239. 

Kant,  Emanuel,  his  poetry,  211. 
Kellogg,  Martin,  letter  to,  206. 
Kernochan,  Francis  E.,  230. 
Kingsley,  Charles,  56. 


306 


INDEX 


Le  Conte,  Professor  John,  233. 
Leland    Stanford    University, 
258. 

"Man  the  Spirit,"  133,  148. 
McLean,  Rev.  J.  K.,  162. 
Memorial  of  Edward  Rowland 

Sill,  149. 

Meredith,  George,  281. 
"Midnight,"  33. 
"Morning,"  how  it  was  written, 

17,  30. 

"Nation,"  the,  100. 
"News  Girl,  The"  114. 

Oakland,  Cal,  128;  Sill's  life 

there,  133,  134,  147. 
"Overland  Monthly,"  the,  190, 

228. 

Palmer,  C.  T.  H.,  60,  61.  122, 

128,  289. 

Phillips  Exeter  Academy,  9, 
10. 

Rowland,  Rev.  David  S.,  3. 
Rowland,  Elizabeth  Newberry, 

4. 
Royce,  Josiah,  137,  170,  173, 

176. 

Sacramento,  Cal.,  51,  53. 

Sand,  George,  226,  243,  254, 
276,  278. 

Shearer,  Sextus,  21,  22,  27,  63, 
70,  80,  86,  299;  his  illness  and 
death,  122,  123. 

Shinn,  Millicent,  reminiscences 
of  Sill,  134,  158,  160;  letters 
to,  145,  183,  184,  195,  221. 

Sill,  Edward  Rowland,  his  an 
cestry,  1;  his  birthplace,  1; 
his  parents,  5;  his  school  days, 


9, 10;  his  life  at  Yale  College, 
12-34;  his  appearance,  24-28, 
29,  84,  296;  his  undergradu 
ate  writing,  29;  his  self-criti 
cism,  39;  his  voyage  'round 
the  Horn,  37-50;  his  scien 
tific  tendencies,  40;  his  first 
sojourn  in  California,  51  et 
seq.;  studies  law,  57,  83; 
studies  medicine,  59;  reads 
theology,  65;  his  early  love 
affair,  66;  his  religious  views, 
75-80,  177,  239,  241,  253, 
255;  as  abolitionist,  83;  con 
siders  going  on  the  stage,  84; 
his  marriage,  93;  at  Cam 
bridge,  94;  as  translator,  99, 
101;  gives  up  theology,  102; 
tries  journalism,  103  et  seq.\ 
as  teacher,  116, 120, 124, 125, 
126,  134,  138,  149-58,  164, 
180;  as  writer,  130,  191,  220, 
222;  his  second  sojourn  in 
California,  131  et  seq.;  memo 
rial  of,  149;  resigns  professor 
ship,  178,  189;  visits  Europe, 
183  et  seq.;  his  last  visit  to 
New  York,  292;  his  person 
ality,  296. 

Sill,  Dr.  Elisha  Noyes,  4. 

Sill,  Elizabeth,  9,  93. 

Sill,  Dr.  Theodore,  4. 

"  Song  of  the  Horse,  The"  111. 

Spencer,  Herbert,  180,  192, 
254,  262,  269. 

Stearns,  R.  E.  C.,  verses  to,  189. 

Stedman,  Edmund,  264. 

"Summer  Afternoon,"  107. 

Sumner,  Charles,  143. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  36,  72,  77, 

81,  100. 
"Timothy  Grass,"  105,  108. 

To  the  Unknown  Soul"  299. 


INDEX 


307 


University  of  California,  116, 
131,  148,  170. 

"Venus  ofMilo,  The"  190. 

Ware,  Sir  Thomas,  1. 
Williams,  Ralph  O.,  memories 
of  Sill,  27,  300. 


Windsor,  Conn.,  1,  3,  5,  8,  36, 

202,  204. 
Woolsey,  President,  of  Yale,  17. 

Yale  College  in  1857,  13-21; 
compared  with  Harvard,  23, 
34;  conditions  in  1885,  238, 
255,  269. 


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